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THE AWAKENING
OF JAPAN
THE AWAKENING
OF JAPAN
BY
OKAKURA-KAKUZO
AUTHOR OF " THE IDEAIS OF THE EAST "
NEW YORK
THE CENTURY CO.
1905
Copyright, 1904, by
The Century Co.
Published November, 190U
THE OEVINNE PRESS
CONTENTS
PAGE
Publishers' Preface ix
Chapter I. The Night of Asia
The sudden development of Japan an enigma to foreign
observers — Asia the true source of Japan's inspiration —
While Christendom struggled with medievalism the
Buddhaland was a garden of culture — Effect of Islam
upon Asia — The Mongol outburst destroyed Asia's unity
— The condition of China and India — Japan never con-
qaered, but buried alive for nearly 270 years 8
Chapter II. The Chrysalis
Japan under the Tokugawa shogunate — lyeyasu's influ-
ence— The Mikado's palace the "Forbidden Interior" —
The kuges, or court aristocracy — The daimios — The
samurai, or sworded gentry — The commoners: farmers,
artisans, and traders — The outcasts — The nation in a
pleasant slumber 22
Chapter III. Buddhism and Confucianism
Buddhism and Confucianism never interfered in matters
of state — Despite its temples and monasteries, Japan has
no church — Neo-Confucianism 53
Chapter IV. The Voice from Within
Three schools of thought united in causing the regener-
ation of Japan — First, the Kogaku, or School of Classical
Learning — Second, the School of Oyomei — Third, the
Historical School 70
CONTENTS
Chapter V. The White Disaster
The advent of the West not an unmixed blessing— But
the Japanese eagerly identify themselves veith Western
civilization — And are regarded as renegades by their
neighbors — Russia the first European nation to threaten
Japan, at the end of the eighteenth century — The advent
of American war-vessels a mighty shock 95
Chapter VI. The Cabinet and the
Boudoir
The coming of Commodore Perry unites the nation — The
ladies of Yedo Castle and the shogunate — The shogun
of Commodore Perry's time — The conflict on the succes-
sion to the shogunate — Execution of agitators — Assassi-
nation of the Premier Hikone 113
Chapter VII. The Transition
Eight years of rapid changes — The Federalists — The
Imperialists — The Unionists — The last of the shoguns. . 141
Chapter VIII. Restoration and Refor-
mation
The Restoration essentially a return — Past conditions
revived, with the new spirit of freedom and equality' —
Constitutional government a success in Japan — Edu-
cation— The commoner transformed into a samurai by
the system of military service — The Japanese soldier's
contempt of death not founded on hope of future reward
— The exaltation of womanhood — The question of treaty
revision — The helm in strong hands 162
Chapter IX. The Reincarnation
Japan accepts the new without sacrificing the old — The
heart of Old Japan still beats strongly — In art Japan
stands alone against all the world 184
vi
CONTENTS
Chapter X. Japan and Peace
The very nature of Japanese civilization prohibits aggres-
sion— Relations with China and Korea — The war with
China in 1894-5 — The Yellow Peril — The night of the
Orient has been lifted, but the worid still in the dusk of
humanity 201
Chronology 224
vii
PUBLISHERS' PREFACE
Okakuea-Kakuzo, the author of this
work and of " The Ideals of the East,"
was born in the year 1863. Having
been, as he has said, " from early youth
fond of old things," after leaving col-
lege in 1880 he interested himself in the
formation of clubs and societies for ar-
chaeological research. The Japanese
Renaissance, begun at the end of the
eighteenth century, suffered a brief
check during the civil commotion fol-
lowing the opening of the country after
the arrival of the American Commodore
Perry. The work of Okakura was a
resumption of that begun by the earher
scholars.
In 1886 this scholarly young enthu-
siast was sent to America and Europe
as a commissioner to report on Western
art education. On returning, he organ-
ix
ized the Imperial Art School of Tokio,
of which he was made director. He was
also one of the chief organizers, and is
still a member, of the Imperial Archseo-
logical Commission, whose duty it is to
study, classify, and preserve the ancient
architecture, the archives of the monas-
teries, and all specimens of ancient art.
Okakura was, naturally, one of the
promoters of the reactionary movement
against the wholesale introduction of
Western art and manners. This move-
ment was carried on by the starting of
periodicals and clubs devoted to the
preservation of the old life of Japan, —
the work being carried on, also, in the
field of literature and the drama.
In 1898 he resigned the directorship
of the Imperial Art School at Tokio,
having had some difference with the
educational authorities in the matter of
the course of instruction to be pursued
therein. Nearly one half of the faculty
resigned at the same time, and started,
in a suburb of Tokio, a private acad-
emy called Nippon Bijitsuin. Here
are kept up the ancient traditions of na-
tive art.
Simultaneously with the foundation
of this school of instruction, a number
of prominent painters of the national
school of art in various parts of the
country organized the Society of Japa-
nese Painters, of which the president is
Prince Nijo, — the head of the Fujiwara
family and uncle of the crown prin-
cess,— Okakura being elected vice-presi-
dent.
It is proper to state that the present
work, like " The Ideals of the East," is
not a translation, but is written by its
Japanese author originally in English.
This work is based not merely upon
printed material and common hearsay,
but upon information derived through
the author's special acquaintance with
surviving actors in the Restoration.
In " The Awakening of Japan " the
author answers with profound know-
ledge, great vividness of expression, and
xi
intense patriotism the question now up-
permost in the minds of Western ob-
servers : From what sources are drawn
the intellectual and moral qualities
which have enabled the present genera-
tion of statesmen, citizens, soldiers, and
sailors, under an able emperor, to enter
suddenly, as a first-class liberal power,
into the company of nations?
The author shows clearly and pictur-
esquely that the accomplishments of the
New Japan are the natural outcome of
her history, — her religion, her art, her
tradition. He declares that there is no
"Yellow Peril"; that the empire,
though warlike, stands not for aggres-
sion but for peace I He sketches the en-
tire history of the country, but dwells
particularly upon modern events and
developments, — the opening of the long-
closed door of the imprisoned nation by
Commodore Perry, the restoration of
the Mikado to power, the new regime,
the occasion of the war of 1904. He
essays an answer to the anxious query
xii
of the admirers of the art of Japan:
Will Japan's modern successes lead to
the loss of its ancient and distinctive art?
He indicates some of the tendencies
which may affect the future of the
Orient; and he speaks especially of the
Christian attitude toward woman as
an influence upon the society and civili-
zation of Japan.
xiu
THE
AWAKENING OF JAPAN
THE
AWAKENING OF JAPAN
THE NIGHT OF ASIA
THE sudden development of Japan
has been more or less of an enigma
to foreign observers. She is the coun-
try of flowers and ironclads, of dash-
ing heroism and delicate tea-cups, — the
strange borderland where quaint shad'^
ows cross each other in the twilight
of the New and the Old World. Un-
til recently the West has never taken
Japan seriously. It is amusing to find
nowadays that such success as we have
achieved in our efforts to take a place
8
THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN
among the family of nations appears
in the eyes of many as a menace to
Christendom. In the mysterious no-
thing is improbable. Exaggeration is
the courtesy which fancy pays to the
unknown. What sweeping condem-
nation, what absurd praise has not the
world lavished on New Japan? We
are both the cherished child of modern
progress and a dread resurrection of
heathendom— the Yellow Peril itself 1
Has not the West as much to un-
learn about the East as the East has
to learn about the West? In spite of
the vast sources of information at the
command of the West, it is sad to
realize to-day how many misconcep-
tions are still entertained concerning
us. We do not mean to allude to the
unthinking masses who are still domi-
nated by race prejudice and that vague
THE NIGHT OF ASIA
hatred of the Oriental which is a relic
from the days of the crusades. But
even the comparatively well-informed
fail to recognize the inner significance
of our revival and the real goal of our
aspirations. It may he that, as our
problems have been none of the sim-
plest, our attitude has been often para-
doxical. Perhaps the fact that the his-
tory of East Asiatic civilization is still
a sealed book to the Western public
may account for the great variety of
opinions held by the outside world con-
cerning our present conditions and fu-
ture possibilities.
Our sympathizers have been pleased
to marvel at the facility with which we
have introduced Western science and
industries, constitutional government,
and the organization necessary for car-
rying on a gigantic war. They forget
5
THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN
that the strength of the movement
which brought Japan to her present
position is due not less to the innate
viriHty which has enabled her to as-
similate the teachings of a foreign civ-
ilization than to her capability of
adopting its methods. With a race,
as with the individual, it is not the ac-
cumulation of extraneous knowledge,
but the realization of the self within,
that constitutes true progress.
With immense gratitude to the West
for what she has taught us, we must
still regard Asia as the true source of
our inspirations. She it was who trans-
mitted to us her ancient culture, and
planted the seed of our regeneration.
Our joy must be in the fact that, of all
her children, we have been permitted
to prove ourselves worthy of the in-
heritance. Great as was the difficulty
6
THE NIGHT OF ASIA
involved in the struggle for a national
reawakening, a still harder task con-
fronted Japan in her effort to bring an
Oriental nation to face the terrible ex-
igencies, of modern existence. Until
the moment when we shook it off, the
same lethargy lay upon us which now
lies on China and India. Over our
country brooded the Night of Asia, en-
veloping all spontaneity within its mys-
terious folds. Intellectual activity and
social progress became stifled in the at-
mosphere of apathy. Religion could
but soothe, not cure, the suffering of
the wounded soul. The weight of our
burden can never be understood with-
out a knowledge of the dark back-
ground from which we emerged to the
light.
The decadence of Asia began long
ago with the Mongol conquest in the
7
THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN
thirteenth century. The classic civil-
izations of China and India shine the
brighter by contrast with the night that
has overtaken them since that disas-
trous irruption. The children of the
Hwang-ho and the Ganges had from
early days evolved a culture compara-
ble with that of the era of highest en-
lightenment in Greece and Rome, one
which even foreshadowed the trend of
advanced thought in modern Europe.
Buddhism, introduced into China and
the farther East during the early cen-
turies of the Christian era, bound to-
gether the Vedic and Confucian ideals
in a single web, and brought about the
unification of Asia. A vast stream of
intercourse flowed throughout the ex-
tent of the whole Buddhaland. Tidings
of any fresh philosophical achievement
in the University of Nalanda,^ or in
^ The center of Buddhist learning in Behar.
8
THE NIGHT OF ASIA
the monasteries of Kashmir, were
brought by pilgrims and wandering
monks to the thought-centers of Chinaj,
Korea, and Japan. Kingdoms often ex-
changed courtesies, while peace mar-
ried art to art. From this synthesis of
the whole Asiatic life a fresh impetus
was given to each nation. It is curious
to note that each effort in one nation
to attain a higher expression of hu-
manity is marked by a simultaneous
and parallel movement in the other.
That liberalism and magnificence, re-
sulting in the worship of poetry and
harmony, which, in the sixth century,
so characterized the reign of Vikra-
maditya in India, appear equally in
the glorious age of the Tang emperors
of China (618-907), and at the coiu-t
of our contemporary mikados at Nara.
Again the movement toward individual-
ism and renationalization which, in the
9
THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN
eighth century, is marked in India
by the advent of Sankaracharya, the
apostle of Hinduism, is followed, dur-
ing the Sung dynasty (960-1260), by a
similar activity in China, culminating
in Neo-Confucianism and the recasting
of the Zen school^ of Buddhism, a
phase echoed both in Japan and Korea.
Thus, while Christendom was strug-
gling with medievalism, the Buddha-
land was a great garden of culture,
where each flower of thought bloomed
in individual beauty.
But, alas! the Mongol horsemen un-
der Jenghiz Khan were to lay waste
these areas of civilization, and make of
them a desert like that out of which they
themselves came. It was not the first
time that the warriors of the steppes
^ Zen is the sect of Buddhism which seeks illumination
through self-concentration. It corresponds to the Indian
Gnan.
10
THE NIGHT OF ASIA
had appeared in the rich valleys of
China and India. The Huns and the
Scythians had often succeeded in tem-
porarily inflicting their rule on the
horders of these countries. After a
time, however, they were either driven
out, or else tamed and finally absorbed
in the peaceful life of the plain. But
this last Mongol outburst was of a
magnitude unequaled in the past. It
was destined not only to reach the Pa-
cific and the Indian Ocean, but to cross
the Ural and overflow Moscow. The
descendants of Jenghiz Khan in China
established the Yuen dynasty and
reigned at Peking from 1280 to 1368,
while their cousins began a series of
attacks on India which ended in the
empire of the Grand Moguls. The
Yuens still adhered to Buddhism,
though in the degenerate form known
11
THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN
as Lamaism; but the Mogul emper-
ors of Delhi, who came in the foot-
steps of Mahmud of Ghazni, had em-
braced the Arabian faith as they sped
on their path of conquest through
southern Asia. The Moguls not only
exterminated Buddhism, but also per-
secuted Hinduism. It was a terrible
blow to Buddhaland when Islam inter-
posed a barrier between China and
India greater than the Himalayas
themselves. The flow of intercourse,
so essential to human progress, was
suddenly stopped. Our own time-
honored relations with our continental
neighbors even began to wane after the
Mongol conquerors of China at-
tempted to invade Japan in the latter
part of the thirteenth century, forcing
Korea to act as their ally. Their bel-
ligerent attitude continued for nearly
12
THE NIGHT OF ASIA
forty years; and though, thanks to our
insular position and the prowess of our
warriors, we were able successfully to
repel their attacks, remembrance of their
aggression was not to be effaced, and
even led to retaliatory steps on our part.
The memory of our ancient friend-
ship with the courts of the Tang and
Sung dynasties was lost. One of the
latent causes of our late war with the
Celestial Empire may be found in the
mutual suspicion with which the two
nations have now regarded each other
for many centuries. By the Mongol
conquest of Asia, Buddhaland was rent
asunder, never again to be reunited.
How little do the Asiatic nations now
know of each other! They have grown
callous to the doom that befalls their
neighbors.
One cannot but be struck by the con-
13
THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN
trast between the effect of the Mongol
outburst on Buddhaland and on Chris-
tendom. The maritime races of the
Mediterranean and the Baltic, by their
long course of mutual aggression, were
well equipped to cope with the terrific
onslaught of the nomadic invaders. In
spite of temporary reverses, Europe
may even be said to have gained some
advantage from those struggles which
were so disastrous to us of the East.
It was then that she first developed that
power of combination which makes her
so formidable to-day. The Mongol
outburst, which displaced the Turkish
hordes and resulted in the creation of
the Saracenic and Ottoman empires,
gave the Frankish nations the oppor-
tunity of uniting against a common
enemy. Before the walls of Jerusalem
and on the banks of the Danube met in
14
THE NIGHT OF ASIA
comradeship, once and forever, the
flower of Christian chivalry, and there
was consolidated a conception of Chris-
tendom such as papal Rome could
never alone have brought into exis-
tence. The fall of Constantinople
was in itself one of the chief factors
of the Italian Renaissance.
The peaceful and self-contained na-
ture of Eastern civilization has been
ever weak to resist foreign aggression.
We have not only permitted the Mon-
gol to destroy the unity of Asia, but
have allowed him to crush the life of
Indian and Chinese culture. From
both the thrones of Peking and Delhi,
the descendants of Jenghiz Khan per-
petuated a system of despotism con-
trary to the traditional policies of the
lands they had subjugated. Entire
lack of sympathy between the con-
16
THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN
querors and the conquered, the intro-
duction of an ahen official language,
ihe refusal to the native of any vital
participation in administration, toge-
ther with the dreadful clash of race-
ideals and religious beliefs, all com-
bined to produce a mental shock and
anguish of spirit from which the In-
dians and the Chinese have never re-
covered. Such scholarship as was al-
lowed to siu^ive, was confined to those
servile minds who submitted meekly to
barbaric patronage. What was left
of original intellectual vigor was heard
only among the despairing echoes of
the forest, or in the savage laughter of
the bazaar. Art thenceforth becomes
either ultra-conventional or else bizarre
and grotesque.
Attempts to overthrow the foreign
yoke were not lacking, and some of
16
THE NIGHT OF ASIA
them were even successful. But the
disintegration of the national con-
sciousness under alien tyranny made
renationalization almost impossible,
and the native dynasties were unable to
withstand fresh waves of outside ag-
gression. In China, the Ming or
Bright dynasty, which wrested the gov-
ernment from the Mongols in the mid-
dle of the fourteenth century, soon be-
came a prey to internal discords.
Scarcely had the destruction attendant
on the Mongol reign been repaired,
when, near the end of the sixteenth cen-
tury, a fresh invasion came from the
north, and the Manchus tore the scep-
ter from the native rulers. In spite of
the strenuous efforts made by the wiser
statesmen of this new dynasty, no com-
plete fusion of the Manchus and the
Chinese has ever been accomplished.
2 ^rj
THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN
To-day the Celestial Empire is so di-
vided against itself that it is powerless
to repel outside attack. Europe, with
her iron grasp on some of her most im-
portant ports, has even contemplated
the partition of the whole of China. So
in India the reactionary uprising of the
Mahrattas and the Sikhs against the
Mohammedan tyrants, though parti-
ally successful, did not crystallize into
a universal expression of patriotism.
This lack of unity enabled a Western
power to shape her destinies.
Bereft of the spirit of initiative, tired
of impotent revolts, and deprived of le-
gitimate ambitions, the Chinese and the
Indian of to-day have come to prostrate
themselves before the inevitable. Some
among them find refuge in the memory
of past grandeur, thus hardening the
crust of tradition and exclusiveness ;
18
THE NIGHT OF ASIA
while the souls of others, wafted among
ethereal dreams, seek solace in an ap-
peal to the unknown. The Night of
Asia, which enshrouds them, is not,
perhaps, without its own subtle beauty.
It reminds us of the deep glorious
nights we know so well in the East, —
listless like wonder, serene like sadness,
opalescent like love. One may touch
the stars behind the veil where man
meets spirit. One may listen to the
secret cadence of nature beyond the
border where sound bows to silence.
Japan, who had proved herself equal
to the task of repelling the Mongol
invasion, found little difficulty in re-
sisting that attempt at Western en-
croachment which, at the beginning of
the seventeenth century, came in the
form of the Shimabara Rebellion, in-
stigated by the Jesuits. It has been
19
THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN
our boast that no foreign conqueror
ever polluted the soil of Japan, but
these attempts at aggression from the
outside hardened our insular preju-
dice into a desire for complete isolation
from the rest of the world. Soon after
the Jesuit war the building of vessels
large enough to ride the high seas was
forbidden, and no one was allowed to
leave our shores. Our sole point of
contact with the outside world was at
the port of Nagasaki, where the Chi-
nese and the Dutch were permitted,
under strict surveillance, to carry on
trade. For the space of nearly two
hundred and seventy years we were as
one buried alive!
Yet a worse fate was in store for us.
The Tokugawa shoguns, who brought
about this remarkable isolation of
Japan, ruled the country from 1600 to
20
THE NIGHT OF ASIA
1868, and threw the invisible network
of their tyranny over all the nation.
From the highest to the lowest, all were
entangled in a subtle web of mutual
espionage, and every element of indi-
viduality was crushed under the weight
of unbending formalism. Deprived of
all stimulus from without, and impris-
oned within our own island realm, we
groped amid a maze of tradition. Dark-
est over us lay the Night of Asia.
21
II
THE CHRYSALIS
THE Tokugawa tyrants, who initia-
ted the policy of strict seclusion,
were the successors of various lines of
shoguns who, as military regents of the
Mikado, had, since the twelfth century,
usurped the government of Japan. Be-
fore that period, Japan was under the
personal rule of the Mikado, who, with
the assistance of court functionaries,
reigned over the country from Kioto.
The over-centrahzation of the imperial
bureaucracy, however, was the cause of
its own decay. Its neglect of provin-
cial administration led to local disturb-
ances and the creation of baronial es-
22
THE CHRYSALIS
tates, over which the Kioto court exer-
cised no active control. The real au-
thority thus came into the hands of the
strongest baronial power, whose repre-
sentative, vested by the Mikado with
the title of shogun, or commander-in-
chief, ruled the country as regent, the
Mikado retaining but a nominal sov-
ereignty over the empire.
The first, or Kamakura, shogunate,
so called from the city which its repre-
sentatives made their capital, exercised
the powers of government from 1186
to 1333. This was followed by a tem-
porary restitution of power to the Mi-
kado ; but the reins of government soon
fell into the hands of another line
of shoguns, the Ashikaga, who from
1336 to 1573 ruled the country from
Kioto itself. The fall of the Ashikaga
shogunate was followed by a long period
23
THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN
of civil war, during which the various
great barons struggled for supremacy.
Out of this state of turmoil arose that
Napoleonic genius, Taiko Hideyoshi,
who, born a peasant, died, in 1598, the
master of unified Japan. His son was,
however, unable to retain the authority
left him by his father, and the dic-
tatorship of the empire devolved, in
1600, on lyeyasu, the first of the To-
kugawa shoguns.
The Tokugawa shogunate differed
from those preceding it in that it was
virtually a monarchy, despite its ap-
parent feudalistic form. Even under
the great Taiko, the government of the
country was conducted by a council
composed of five of the most powerful
barons, but under the Tokugawa re-
gime it became purely autocratic. lye-
yasu framed for his descendants a
M
THE CHRYSALIS
course of policy which enabled them to
retain their rule through fourteen
generations, until the recent restoration
of the Mikado in 1868. He not merely-
curtailed the power of the barons until
they were such only in name, but
erected safeguards against every pos-
sible source of danger to his dynasty.
He not only cut us off from all outside
intercourse, but so separated the differ-
ent classes of society, that the idea of
national unity became completely lost.
The subtleness of his machinations is
manifest not less in his elaborate
scheme for maintaining military ascen-
dancy than in the way in which he took
advantage of our own idiosyncrasies
and secret vanities to disarm all oppo-
sition to his rule. In order that he
might yoke us unresistingly to the car
of routine, he soothed our feelings and
25
THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN
delighted our souls by appeals to that
love and worship for the past that is one
of our national instincts. Our bonds
were, in fact, largely of our own
weaving, and lyeyasu but lulled us to
sleep, unmindful of the future, within
the chrysalis of tradition. Perhaps
it is for this, that he knew us
only too well, we execrate his memory
to-day.
The mechanism of the Tokugawa
rule cannot be adequately described in
brief; not only is it exceedingly com-
plicated, but it is without striking par-
allel in the history of any country. It
affords the peculiar spectacle of a so-
ciety perfectly isolated and self -com-
plete, which, acting and reacting upon
itself, produced worlds within worlds,
each with its separate life and ideals,
and its own distinct expressions in art
26
THE CHRYSALIS
and literature. It exhibits all the sub-
tleness of European class distinction,
plus the element of caste as understood
in India. We can here but indicate its
main phases.
First, over all was the Mikado. That
sacred conception is the thought-in-
heritance of Japan from her very be-
ginning. Mythology has consecrated it,
history has endeared it, and poetry has
idealized it. Buddhism has enriched
it with that reverence which India pays
to the " Protector of the Law," and
Confucianism has confirmed it with the
loyalty which China offers to the "Son
of Heaven." The Mikado may cease
to govern, but he always reigns. He ex-
ists not by divine right, but by divine
law, — a fact of man and nature. He is
always there, like our beloved mountain
of Fuji, which stands eternally in silent
27
THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN
beauty, or like the glorious sea which
forever washes our shore.
We must remember, however, that
the political significance of the Mikado
has not always been the same. As we
are often unconscious of the every-day
facts of nature, because of their un-
questioned existence, so we became un-
conscious of the Mikado, and basked
in the daylight, unmindful of the sun
above. Clouds of successive usurpa-
tions long obscured the heavens, so that
devotion to the Solar Throne became
a distant though never entirely forgot-
ten homage. By the sixteenth century,
when lyeyasu assumed the shogunate
and became in reahty absolute mon-
arch of Japan, all memory of the per-
sonal rule of the Mikado had been lost
for four long centuries. The Mikado's
court at Kioto, the former capital of
THE CHRYSALIS
the imperial government, was still ex-
istent, owing to its past prestige, but it
was only a faint reflection of its former
glory.
The great genius of lyeyasu is ap-
parent in his full recognition of the
Mikado in the national scheme. In
strong contrast to the arrogance and
utter neglect which the preceding sho-
guns displayed toward the court, he
spared no effort to show his respect.
He augmented the imperial revenues,
invited the daimios (feudal lords) to
participate in rebuilding the imperial
palace, restored the court ceremonial
and etiquette, and was unceasing in his
ministrations to the welfare of the im-
perial household. He even started the
unprecedented ceremony of the sho-
gun paying personal homage to the
throne, and a brilliant pageant yearly
S9
THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN
passed from his castle of Yedo (now
known as Tokio), dazzling the de-
hghted eyes of the populace as it
wended its way slowly toward Kioto.
All this was flattering to the national
love of tradition. It was considered
as heralding the advent of the mil-
lennium.
But behind this appearance of loy-
alty to the throne lay hidden the sub-
tlest snares of the Tokugawas. If
they recognized the necessity of the im-
perial cult, they determined that they
alone should be its high-priests, and that
others should worship at a respectful
distance. In the name of sanctity, the
Kioto court was deprived of those last
remnants of political authority which
former regencies had suffered it to re-
tain. A strong garrison was stationed
in Kioto, ostensibly for the protection
30
THE CHRYSALIS
of the palace, but its members were cho-
sen from the tried body-guard of the
Tokugawas themselves. They contin-
ued to invite one of the imperial princes
to take the monastic vows and reside in
Yedo as lord abbot of the Uyeno tem-
ple, by which means they always virtu-
ally held at their capital a hostage from
the Kioto court. No daimio was al-
lowed to seek audience of the Mikado
without their consent.
The Mikado, unseen and unheard,
commanded a mysterious awe. His
palace now became the " Forbidden In-
terior " in the strict sense of the word.
The ancient political significance of the
court was lost in a semi-religious con-
ception. No wonder that the Western-
ers who first visited our country wrote
that there were two rulers in Japan,
the temporal in Yedo, and the spiri-
31
THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN
tual in Kioto. In spite of the constant
loyalty which our forefathers expressed
for the Mikado in Tokugawa days,
they had none of the fiery enthusiasm
which inspires us to-day. With them it
was symbohsm; with us it is a living
reality.
Next to the Mikado, and foremost
in social rank (the imperial line being
considered above all class distinctions),
came the kuges, or court aristocracy
of Kioto. The exalted position which
they held in society arose from their
association with the Mikado. From
their position near the throne, they were
called poetically the Friends of the
Moon and Guests of the Cloud. Their
fortunes waxed and waned with those
of the imperial household, to which,
regardless of the immense political
changes that have come over Japan
THE CHRYSALIS
since the days when they actively par-
ticipated in the conduct of the empire,
they have ever remained faithful.
Herein again lies another remarkable
example of that obstinate tenacity
which makes the Japanese race pre-
serve the old while it welcomes the new.
The kuges were the successors of
those princely bureaucrats who par-
ticipated in the imperial rule from the
year Q4i5 to 1166. The old system of
government, together with its social
customs and art expressions, was based
mainly on that of the Tang dynasty
of China. The kuges have always re-
mained guardians of its ideals. While
China was trying one policy after an-
other, and Japan herself was passing
through various different phases of
feudalism toward the monarchism of
the Tokugawas, the kuges continued
" 3S
THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN
to live the life which preceded the
twelfth century. Their costumes were
of the eleventh, their etiquette of the
tenth century. They read Chinese with
the intonation of the Tang period,
and danced to the classic measure of
the Bugaku music, the inheritance of
an era preceding the ninth century.
They delighted in the purism of the
Fujiwara poetry, and affected the
technic of the ancient school of paint-
ing. It is to their devotion to the
past that we owe the preservation of
the Kharma-kanda (ritualistic obser-
vances) of India and the early Buddhist
doctrines of China.
The Tokugawa government hu-
mored and honored the court nobles be-
cause of their association with the Mi-
kado and the place they occupied in the
history of the nation. The kuges were
given precedence over the daimios, and
34
THE CHRYSALIS
their incomes, if not greatly increased,
were at least assured to them. This
last must have been gratifying to those
of them who remembered the disastrous
days when they had to sell autograph
poems for their sustenance. They were
contented, and the Tokugawas kept
them well disposed toward themselves
by intermarriage and timely financial
aid. All political power, however, was
completely taken from the kuges, not-
withstanding the high-sounding titles
which they were still allowed to retain.
The duty of the privy councilor would
consist in debating on the merits of a
love-ditty, and that of the high min-
ister of state in presiding over a com-
petition of nightingales. It was in
those days of refined folly that the
queen in our game of chess was sol-
emnly abolished by imperial command.
Theoretically, next to the court no-
35
THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN
bility of Kioto in social position, but
actually far prouder and more power-
ful, came the daimios, or feudal lords
(literally grandees), nearly three hun-
dred in number. These were divided
into classes — the Tozama daimios, who
were the descendants of the barons of
former days, and the daimios of recent
creation, who had been ennobled by the
Tokugawas, either for their services,
or because they traced their Hneage
to some member of that family. In the
early days of Tokugawa rule, the To-
zama daimios were a source of great
danger, as their ancient warlike spirit
remained as yet untamed. The meth- >
ods that lyeyasu and his successors em-
ployed in maintaining military ascen-
dancy, and in generally bringing the
daimios under absolute control, are a
study in themselves. Any map of Japan
THE CHRYSALIS
in the early days of the Tokugawas will
show the feudatory provinces so dis-
tributed that all political combination
between them was rendered impossible.
On such a map we will find the daimi-
ates of Tokugawa creation, which were
constantly being augmented in size and
strength, wedged in between the earlier
daimiates. Gradually all strategical
points on the main roads of communi-
cation throughout the country were
taken from the Tozama daimios, and
either held by the shogun himself or put
into the hands of his minions. The
practice of assembling the daimios at
Yedo to sit in conference over ques-
tions of territorial rights soon led to the
inauguration of a system by which each
daimio was obliged to leave his terri-
tory every alternate year and pay per-
sonal homage to the shogun, while his
37
THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN
family were required to reside perma-
nently at the capital as hostages. In
this manner the greater part of such
time as the daimios were not under im-
mediate control of the shogun was con-
sumed in journeying to and from their
provinces, so that but little opportunity
was given them to form or carry out
conspiracies against the government.
The newly enacted law of inheritance
demanded the approval of the govern-
ment in each case of succession to the
daimiates, and also in all cases of mar-
riage. A constant drain was main-
tained on their feudatory income by
inviting the daimios to assist in repair-
ing the imperial palace, and in other
public works. Jealousy and rivalry
were encouraged to such an extent that
they resulted in a lamentable condition
of mutual distrust and espionage.
38
THE CHRYSALIS
Those Tozama daimios who revolted
against this state of things soon found
out their impotence, and were inva-
riably punished by the diminution,
transference, or confiscation of their
territorial possessions, — the latter pen-
alty attended with death. They were
taught to realize that the government
of the country, though still feudal in
form, had become in reahty an absolute
monarchy, — patriarchal and benevo-
lent, but thoroughly despotic. They
soon found that their smallest actions
were watched with unceasing vigilance,
so that they began to be distrust-
ful of even their own retainers. This
vigorous surveillance was not confined
to the Tozama daimios alone. Dread-
ing the combination of administrative
power with hereditary influence, the
Tokugawas invariably chose their cab-
39
THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN
inet ministers from among the smaller
daimios of their own creation. The
powerful members of their own aristoc-
racy were watched as strictly as were
the Tozama lords, a fact which ex-
plains why all the daimios were so luke-
warm in their sympathy toward the
Tokugawa government during the
struggles of the Restoration.
Below the daimios came the samu-
rai, or sworded gentry, four hundred
thousand strong. They served either
immediately under the shogun himself,
or else under the banners of the various
daimios. Their appointments were
hereditary, and their blood was kept
pure by the prohibition of all marriage
with the lower classes, except in case
of the foot-soldiers, who constituted the
lowest rank of samurai. They had the
right and obligation of wearing two
40
THE CHRYSALIS
swords and bearing family crests.
Within their own ranks were many
class distinctions, each with its special
privileges. The estates of high-class
samurai were often wider and richer
than those of the smaller daimios. Un-
der the code of the samurai, however,
all enjoyed that equality that belongs
to comradeship in arms; and even as a
king of England or France delighted
in the title of first gentleman of the
land, so the shogun considered himself
first samurai of the empire.
But with the advent of the Toku-
gawa regime the existence of the dai-
mio and the samurai, like that of the
court aristocracy of Kioto, became an
anachronism. The samurai, a product
of the feudal period intervening be-
tween the fall of the imperial bureau-
cracy in the twelfth century and the
41
THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN
rise of the Tokugawa monarchy in the
seventeenth century, clung with singu-
lar tenacity to their past ideals. Their
art was that of the Kano school, a re-
flection of the fifteenth century. Their
music and drama were the No^ the six-
teenth-century opera of Japan. Their
costumes, architecture, and language
retained the style of the time imme-
diately preceding the Tokugawa pe-
riod. Their religion followed those
Zen doctrines which had been the vital
inspiration of the feudal age. In fact,
the whole code of the samurai was
an heirloom left to them by the Kama-
kura and Ashikaga knights, in whose
days the whole nation was a camp.
>, lyeyasu, accepting Japan as it was,
, and utilizing its idiosyncrasies, kept the
military class quiet through its own
i love of hereditary conventions and
4:2
THE CHRYSALIS
military obedience. Everything was
regulated by precedent and routine.
The son of a samurai or a daimio fol-
lowed exactly in the footsteps of his
father, and dreamed of no change. By
giving the samurai a Confucian educa-
tion, the Tokugawas both pacified his
warlike instincts and encouraged his
worship of tradition. The blessing of
that rule which they termed the Great
Peace of Tokugawa was so constantly
dinned into his ears that he hoped and
believed that it would be everlasting.
The life of a Tokugawa daimio or
samurai was not devoid of amusements.
Besides his fencing-bouts and jiujitsu
matches, his falconry and games of
archery, he had his wo-dances, his tea-
ceremonies, and those interminable
banquets at which he would recount the
exploits of his ancestors. Moreover,
43
THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN
much time might be consumed in the
composition of bad Chinese poems be-
neath the cherry-trees. He was often
wealthy and always extravagant, for
his contempt for gold was ingrained.
He would squander a fortune for a
rare Sung vase or a Masamune blade.
The marvelous workmanship of the
Gotos in metal, and of the Komas in
gold lacquer was the result of his pa-
tronage. It is to the disappearance of
the daimio and the samurai that Japan
owes her sudden fall of standard in ar-
tistic taste.
Such samurai as had been thrown
out of employment either through dis-
missal by their lord or the extinction of
the daimiate under which they served,
were called ronin (the unattached).
Sometimes a second son, with literary
talents or scholastic ambitions, became
44
THE CHRYSALIS
a ronin, and supported himself by teach-
ing. The ronins retained all the rights
and privileges of the samurai, while
their state of independence gave them
an individuality and freedom of
thought unknown among their more
orthodox brethren. It was through the
ronin scholars that the first message of
the Restoration was to be announced to
the nation.
Fourth in the social scale came the
commoners, ranked in the order of
farmers, artisans, and traders. As in
the case of the rise of European mon-
archies the populace ever came to the
help of the sovereign against the no-
bles, so in Japan the Tokugawas
found in the commoners their best al-
lies against the daimios, and conse-
quently granted them many privileges
hitherto unknown. Then life and prop-
45
THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN
erty of the masses found a security un-
precedented in the days of the preda-
tory barons. Within a limited sphere,
they were even allowed to develop self-
government. Industry and commerce
flourished unmolested. Agriculture
was specially encom-aged, as rice was
the medium in which the revenues of
the government were taken. It is to
the commoners that we owe the arts and
crafts which have made Japan famous.
It is to them that we are indebted for
our modern drama and popular litera-
ture, the color-prints of Torii and Ho-
kusai.
Toward the commoners also, how-
ever, the Tokugawas pursued their
policy of segregation, inclosing them
by barriers of tradition within a sepa-
rate compartment of their social struc-
ture. They were welcome to their spe-
THE CHRYSALIS
cial vocations and amusements, but
they were forbidden to trespass on
what belonged to the higher orders.
They were not allowed to wear family
crests, or even to bear surnames. They
could have their theater, with its line
of dangiuros (actors), but might not,^^^
indulge in the wo-music of the samurai, '
or the classic dance of the Kioto no-
bility.
As a precaution against an uprising,
all the commoners were disarmed. An
immense body of secret police was em-
ployed to watch their movements, and
any breath of discontent met with se-
vere punishment. Silent fear haunted
them, for all the walls seemed to have
grown ears. Theirs it was to work and
obey, and not to question. However
rich or accomplished, commoners born
must die commoners. Hemmed in by
47
THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN
inexorable customs and restrictions,
their energy had to vent itself either
through the frivolity of life or the sad-
ness of religion. Can we wonder that
to the more serious commoners religion
consisted in an appeal to the infinite
mercy of Amitaba for absorption in
that divine love, the expression of
which is so marked in the Bhaktas of
India? Can we blame the weaker and
more frivolous among them for seeking
forgetfulness in the idealization of
foUy?
Below the commoners, and, in fact,
ostracized entirely from the social
scheme, were the outcasts known as
Yettas. They were the descendants of
criminals, who, in early times, were not
allowed to intermarry with other fam-
ilies, and so formed a distinct caste by
themselves. Some of them became
48
THE CHRYSALIS
quite wealthy, owing to their posses-
sion of a monopoly in the handling of
leather and hide, an occupation consid-
ered unclean, according to the Bud-
dhist canons. It was from their ranks
that the public executioners were ap-
pointed. Before the Restoration, when
all men were made equal in the eye of
the law, any contact with this class was
considered a pollution.
The national consciousness, divided
within itself by the dams and dikes of
its own conventions, could but narrow
and finally stagnate. The flow of
spontaneity ceased with the end of the
seventeenth century. The microscopic
tendency of later Oriental thought be-
came in us accentuated to a degree un-
known even in China. Our life grew to
be like those miniature and dwarf trees
that were typical products of the Toku-
* 49
THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN
gawa age. Only in art and litera-
ture, essentially the world of freedom,
some vitality is to be found. The
self -concentration of a nation during
that period has given a peculiar charm
to Japanese art. The worship of tra-
ditions, which is the foundation of style
and elegance, has given a subtle re-
finement to all its expressions. Yet
this very classicism was the enemy of
the romanticist efforts, for true indi-
viduality was subdued under the gen-
eral trend of formalism. Again, the
demarcation of social life and ideals
prevented any creative mind from mir-
roring the whole of national loves and
aspirations. Despite a certain clever-
ness in details, or an occasional dash of
wild fancy, no painter of the caliber of
Korin,* or poet with the strength of
^ Korin, a great colorist in the latter half of the
seventeenth century.
50
THE CHRYSALIS
Chikamatsu/ is to be found. Some,
like beautiful pools, may reflect the
shadows of contemporary thought; but
in not one do we get a vision of the
limitless ocean of the ideal.
Yet the hibernation of Japan within
her chrysalis must have been pleasant
in itself, or the nation would not have
slumbered so long. Old folks are still
to be found who cherish the memory
of those days of leisure, when no one
was so vulgar as to think for himself,
when life was elegant, if it was formal.
There were always chances of being
exquisitely foolish, if one was wise
enough to avail himself of them. Said
Kampici, the Chinese Machiavelli, in
telling the secret of absolutism twenty-
two centuries ago: "Amuse them, tire
them not, let them not know." lye-
1 Chikamatsu, his contemporary, the Japanese
Shakspere.
51
THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN
yasu, a past master of craft, followed
these injunctions but too faithfully.
We were amused, we cared not for
change, we did not seek to know.
59
Ill
BUDDHISM AND CONFUCIANISM
SOME critics see in the encourage-
ment given to learning that flaw
in the Tokugawa system of govern-
ment which caused its ultimate down-
fall. Under the regime inaugurated
by lyeyasu every child in the empire
was obliged to learn to read and write,
under the instruction of the local
priests, thus giving a certain amount of
education to even the meanest peasant,
while innumerable academies were es-
tablished throughout the length and
breadth of the land. It is doubtless
true that the result of these measures
was to prepare the national mind for
53
THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN
receiving the message of the Restora-
tion. Yet, when we come to examine
into the nature of the instruction so
freely given to the people by the To-
kugawas, we shall find that perhaps
lyeyasu and his immediate successors
were not so far amiss in their calcu-
lations, after all.
All branches of knowledge are inter-
esting, but some courses of study tend
to encourage ignorance, and such were
the courses in Buddhism and Confu-
cianism which formed the sole curricu-
lum in the Tokugawa academies. To
those who have seen our landscapes
studded with pagodas, and heard our
temple bells calling from every hill, or
to those who remember the great halls
of learning in the various daimiates,
and the chant of reciting voices in
every Tokugawa village, it must seem
54
BUDDHISM AND CONFUCIANISM
strange that Buddhism and Confucian-^ ^
ism played so small a part in the Res-
toration. The fact is that their teach- l^
ings never interfered in matters of "^
state, and their influence was solely
directed toward enforcing ideas of sub-
mission and the love of peace.
We do not agree with those enemies
of lyeyasu who accuse him of being ...
a skeptic and utilizing ethics and re-
ligion only as a means to further his
own ends. He was a great statesman
who combined many of the characteris-
tics of Cromwell and Richelieu. He
was sincere, and acted, according to his
lights, for what he considered the best
interests of the nation. The following
instance of his humanity is enough to
refute those charges of heartlessness
which have been brought against him.
Noticing, during one of his campaigns,
65
THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN
that the enemy were using loose-shafted
arrows, the heads of which remained
in the wound and caused a cruel and
lingering death, he gave orders that all
the Tokugawa arrowheads should be
securely fastened and lacquered to the
shafts. We believe, however, that the
" Old Badger," as he is often nick-
named, knew full well the nature of
Buddhist and Confucian teaching, and
that his astuteness and knowledge of
men did not fail to recognize the bear-
ing which the Oriental philosophy of
his day might have upon the further-
ance of his system of government.
Buddhism was never a menace to the
. state. The reason for this lies far back
^ \ in the antithesis of the Oriental con-
^n*j caption of the social and supersocial
- \ order. By that antithesis the ethical
^ life of the householder is distinguished
56
BUDDHISM AND CONFUCIANISM
from the religious life of the wander-
ing recluse, the two standing in con-
trast, though not necessarily antagonis-
tic. Eastern society, with all its beauty
of harmonized duties and intercalated
occupations, is based on mutual depen-,
dencies, and at best can but end in con-
ventionalism— the moral bondage of
the commune. Religion, on the other
hand, furnishes the means of true
emancipation, and constitutes the acme
of individualism. The ideal monk is
the child of freedom, who, dying to the
mundane, is reborn to the realm of the
spirit. He is like the lotus which rises
in purity above the mire. He is silent,
like the forest in which he meditates;
untrammeled, like the wind that blows
his gown around him. He is of no
caste and no country. What if thrones
are overthrown and nations enslaved:
6T
THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN
did not Buddha, the great teacher of re-
nunciation, watch with undimmed eyes
the total annihilation of his own kingly
race?
Society, the world of tradition and
ethics, looked with respect on the world
of freedom, and gazed with wonder at
the achievements of the spiritual work-
ers who left behind them the boundary
lines of school and sect as they trav-
eled through the regions of the unex-
plored toward the light. Chinese man-
darins dreamed, amid palatial luxuries,
of the bamboo forest, and sighed at the
call of the pine-clad hills. The highest
desire of an Indian or Japanese house-
holder was to reach the age at which,
leaving worldly cares to his children,
he might learn that higher Hf e of a re-
cluse known as Banaprasta or Inkyo.
In donning the monkish robe, a priv-
58
BUDDHISM AND CONFUCIANISM
ilege open to all, he found release from .
^the world of convention. It was in
/ order to escape from social trammels^ .
j that our artists shaved their heads and
\ assumed the guise of priests. y
But the social and the supersocial
worlds never clashed, for each was the
counterpart of the other. In Indian
society we find the Shramanic as the
necessary counterbalance to the Brah-
manic ideal, while in China the same
positions are held by Taoism and Con-
fucianism. Herein lies the secret of
that toleration which has made of In-
dia a museum of religions, and has
caused China to welcome, so long as
they do not interfere with her political
system, the alien faiths of Buddhism,
Zoroastrianism, Nestorianism, Mo-
hammedanism, and modern Christian-
ity. The existence of this twofold
59
THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN
development also explains, in a certain
measure, that attitude of liberalism
and apparent indifference which our
jmodern statesmen of Japan display
toward religious questions, — an atti-
tude often construed as a false idea of
European statecraft, if not of agnos-
ticism. The demarcation of the polit-
ical from the religious life, the divorce
of state and church, is no new idea
with us. Indeed, despite our temples
and monasteries, we have no church.
The innate individuahsm of the
Buddhist ideal, unlike that of the papal
church of Europe, which is even now a
source of concern to some nations, has
ever prevented the formation of a sin-
gle powerful organization to impose
its influence on the state. The tem-
poral power exercised by some of our
monks was due solely to their personal
60
BUDDHISM AND CONFUCIANISM
influence over the Mikado or his officers,
in the imperial days before the feudal
period. It was a sort of mundane of-
fering laid at the feet of holiness, and
was the temporary result of a purely
personal relationship. The priesthood,
as a body or sect, rarely tried to retain
authority over the government, and the
social consciousness was always eager
to reclaim what it considered its own
special function. A sovereign might
be carried away by his spiritual zeal,
but the dynasty invariably recovered its
equilibrium. With the rise of the Ka-
makura shogunate,the Buddhist power,
which had its root in the devotion of the
Kioto court, dechned. The ultra-indi- , M^
vidualistic sect of Zen, which at this kl.*-^
time became the leading school of W**
thought, made no pretense to political r
ambition. During the turbulent age,^
61 ^
THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN
that followed, the predatory attacks of
neighboring barons on the monasteries
caused the establishment of an armed
monkhood. These warrior-priests
guarded the sanctuaries, and, either
alone or in alliance with various dai-
mios, were a prominent feature in the
Ashikaga wars, where they are often
found foremost in the fray, their robe
of mercy ill concealing the blood-
stained mail beneath. They had, how-
ever, almost disappeared by the time
of lyeyasu, when the Hongangi, the
last sect which still boasted of some
military adherents, was easily made to
submit to the authority of the shogun.
The policy of lyeyasu toward Bud-
dhism is characteristic of the funda-
mental idea of Eastern statesmanship.
Himself a Confucian, he counted
among his best friends the three great
62
BUDDHISM AND CONFUCIANISM
Buddhist monks of his ase. He would .
... . ilv^^^
have tolerated even Christianity, if the!
Jesuit movement had not covered aj
political menace. He guaranteed the
privileges of the monasteries, restored
and insured their revenues, and
granted funds for the publication of
religious works. He even enforced
ecclesiastical jurisdiction, and punished
by the pillory and banishment all those
who broke the monastic vows. But at
the same time he debarred the priest-
hood from any participation in the gov-
ernment. He abolished the custom of
employing Buddhist agents in diplo-
matic amenities with Korea, and ap-
pointed a lay officer to control all af-
fairs connected with the clergy. The
influence of Buddhism was on the wane. ,.
Under the protection afforded to thep^
monkhood, and the cultured ease theyl ^
63
THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN
enjoyed, the monasteries became uni-
versities whose occupants were famed
more for their erudition than for their
holiness. The single new sect which
originated in that era differed from
the others only in discipline, a subject
widely discussed in that age of order
and strict regime.
Like Buddhism, Confucianism had
in its later developments become super-
social and indiif erent to politics through
its absorption of Taoist and Buddhist
ideals. In China, from the latter part
of the Tang dynasty, Confucianism
tended to become religious instead of
being purely ethical, as in previous
.^;. days. In Japan this tendency was
^c Wen more pronounced, for during our
tfeudal age all branches of learning
Iwere confined to the Buddhists, so that
the early teachers in the Tokugawa
64
BUDDHISM AND CONFUCIANISM
academies were mostly monks who had
been induced to return to a secular life
in order to impart secular teaching.
They did not give up their Buddhist
costume for a long time, and used to
shave their heads even after they began
to wear swords like other samurai.
They were all followers of the school
of Shiuki, a Neo-Confucian of the'
Sung dynasty, and the teaching they
imparted accorded well with their dress.
Neo-Confucianism, a product of that
remarkable age of "illumination," soj
rich in creative efforts both in art and^
literature, aimed at a synthesis of Tao-j
ist, Buddhist, and Confucian thought, '
and marks the result of a brilliant ef-
fort to mirror the whole of Asiatic con-
sciousness. Its exponents differed in
their interpretation of the Confucian
- classic, according to their mental afiini-
6 65
%JJ...S^ li^l-^<^. ^«.--'-^' ^^-kl^<^^
THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN
ties with Chinese or Indian thought.
Some of them Were called " strayed
Zen," in the same sense as Sanchara-
charya, the Neo-Brahmanist, was ac-
cused of being a " disguised Buddhist."
Shiuki, however, through his greater
leaning toward the doctrines of the
Chinese sage, was recognized as the
central figure of Neo-Confucianism.
His Commentaries on Confucius were
made official text-books by the Em-
peror Yan-lu of the Ming dynasty, and
] his school was accepted as orthodox
by lyeyasu. The general trend of
Neo-Confucianism, even with Shiuki,
tended to make it abstract and specu-
lative, so that as a result its votaries
^' differed but slightly from the followers
ifv^ i.of Buddha, making self -concentration
an important part of mental exercise.
The Ming scholars, with their formal-
jj dUjC^v^-t/vt^ ^! CL^A Y'^^'^^'^^ u'W-'T^^'
BUDDHISM AND CONFUCIANISM
istic instincts, dogmatized the instruc-
tions of Shiuki, and wasted their en-
ergy on his abstract rules of morality
and terminology,— an example fol-
lowed by the Japanese academicians.^
Confucianism was thus deprived of its'
very essence— practical ethics. " As
foolish as a scholar," was a common
witticism of Tokugawa days. Two
schools of heresy tried to stem the tide
and infuse vitality into the Confucian
doctrines, but they commanded an in-
significant minority, for the Tokugawa
censorship was rigorous in suppressingV
all schools of thought that dared to dif- '
fer from the orthodox teaching of its/
own academy.
Thus the knowledge that lyeyasu
imparted to the nation was, after all,
of a kind that gave no great stimulus
to social activity. His system of in-
67
THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN
rstruction formed as much a part of his
j scheme for preserving absolutism as
I any of the military precautions he
took against the power of the Kioto
court or that of the daimiates. Yet
it is but fair to say that the encourage-
ment of learning inaugurated by him
had much to do with the formation of
modern Japanese character. Buddhism
and Neo-Confucianism (which is truly
Buddhist in its nature) gave to the na-
tion that meditative trend of mind which
makes it possible for it to face emer-
gencies with calmness. If he did not
initiate an era of progress, at least he
taught stability. If it had not been for
this, the fierce turmoil of the Restora-
tion, with its violent accession of West-
em thought, would have swept Japan
from her ancient anchorage into an un-
known and stormy sea.
68
BUDDHISM AND CONFUCIANISM
Asia is nothing if not spiritual, buty^tij,
the man of the spirit is not one of I
names or forms. He comes, we wist
not whence, and, like another Lohen-
grin, vanishes when revealed, to fol-
low the quest mysterious in regions un-
known. True spirituality forsook the
luxury of the monastery and the ease
of the academy, to take its rugged seat
in the breast of the lonely ronin-scholar.
Like the snow-covered narcissus pining
for a glimpse of heaven, its silent soul
bore the quenchless prophecy of spring.
69
IV
THE VOICE FROM WITHIN
IT seems to be the general impression
among foreigners that it was the
West who, with the touch of a magic
wand, suddenly roused us from the sleep
of centuries. The real cause of our
awakening, however, came from within.
Our national consciousness had already
begun to stir when, in the year 1853,
Commodore Perry reached our shores,
and had waited but for that event to in-
augurate a universal movement toward
renationalization.
Three separate schools of thought
united to cause the regeneration of Ja-
pan. The first taught her to inquire;
70
THE VOICE FROM WITHIN
the second, to act ; the third, for what to
act. All were tiny streams at their out-
set, finding their source in the solitary
souls of independent thinkers who
nursed them always under censure, of-
ten in banishment. They even coursed
from within the prison walls and
trickled from the scaffold. They were
almost hidden beneath the rank vege-
tation of conventionalism until the mo-
ment when they united to leap in cat-
aracts of patriotic zeal inundating the
whole nation.
The first, known as the Kogaku
( School of Classic Learning) , arose at/
the end of the seventeenth century as a
protest against the dogmas of the gov-
ernmental academies. Its originators
claimed that the Neo-Confucianism of
Shiuki as taught in the academies was
not really Confucianism, but a new-
71
THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN
f angled interpretation of Buddhism and
Taoism. They invited scholars to return
to the original texts of the sage himself
and iind anew the real meaning thereof.
It was a bold stand for them to take,
considering that Shiuki's commentaries
were considered orthodox and their au-
thority had remained unquestioned both
in China and Japan since the Sung Illu-
mination of the eleventh century. This
school for the first time frees the Toku-
gawa mind from the trammels of f or-
mahsm, though its liberahsm does not
result in any particular conclusions.
Its very attitude, that of inquiry, pre-
vents it from crystallizing into any
single solution of Confucianism. Some
of its adherents, like Sorai, go as far as
to maintain that Confucius was purely
a political philosopher and not a teacher
of ethics. Some, on the other hand, like
72
THE VOICE FROM WITHIN
Yamaga-Soko, to whom we owe the de-
velopment of the Samurai Code on a
Confucian basis, found in Japanese in-
stitutions the expression of the moral
law of the Chinese sage. Yet however
they differed individually in their con-
clusions, they united in being heretical
toward the orthodox Tokugawa notions,
and all were objects of disapprobation
to the authorities, — Yamaga-Soko, who
commanded a considerable following,
being banished from Yedo to the dis-
tant and insignificant daimiate of
Akho. Yet even during his confine-
ment there his personality inspired
the well-known Forty-seven Ronins to
achieve their memorable feat of loyalty,
remarkable not only as revealing a new
ideal of samurai-hood, but eloquent in
its silent protest against the Tokugawa
regime.
73
THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN
The second school, which started at
nearly the same time as the first, is
called the School of Oyomei, from the
Japanese pronunciation of Wangyang-
ming, the name of its founder. This
remarkable man was a great general as
well as scholar who lived in China at
the beginning of the sixteenth century,
under the Ming dynasty. He never
ceased to discourse even during the
brilliant campaigns in which he was vic-
torious over the rebels in Southern
China. His philosophy was an ad-
vance on the Neo-Confucianism of
Shiuki, whose doctrines, however, he ac-
cepted in the main. His principal con-
tribution lay in his definition of know-
ledge. With him all knowledge was
useless unless expressed in action. To
know was to be. Virtue was real in
so far only as it was manifested in
74
THE VOICE FROM WITHIN
deeds. The whole universe was' inces-
santly surging on to higher spheres of
development, calHng upon all to join in
its glorious advance. To reaHze their
teachings it was necessary to live the life
of the sages themselves, to consecrate
one's whole energy to the service of
mankind. -Thus he brought Confu-
cianism again into its true domain, that,
of practical ethics.
His doctrines appear to have had
only a temporary influence on China
itself, but they possessed a pecuHar
charm for the Japanese mind, and later
furnished one of the principal incen-
tives toward the accomplishment of
the Restoration. One of the pioneers
of this school in Japan has produced
such an impression on the moral life of
the districts around Lake Biwa that his
memory is still cherished as that of the
76
THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN
"Living Confucius." Another, devot-
ing himself to the material welfare of
the people, has left in his engineering
feats for the irrigation of the Okayama
provinces a monument to the zeal in-
spired by Oyomei ; yet he had to suffer
for heresy and died in exile and dis-
grace.
The Oyomian scholars of Japan
went further than the Chinese in their
dynamic conception of the cosmic force.
Their predilection for Indian modes
of thought, especially for that of the
Zen sect of Buddhism, made them
lay great stress on the idea of change,
with the result that they came to conclu-
sions curiously akin to many of those
held by modern evolutionists. The
Buddhas of the past were not the Bud-
dhas of the future, for they must in-
clude the former and something more.
76
THE VOICE FROM WITHIN
Every new life was built on the debris
of the past and amid the tumultuous
crash of a myriad of dissolving worlds.
A reincarnation was self-realization on ^_.
a different plane. How magnificent is
change! How beautiful the great
transition known as life and death I
The Japanese Oyomians delighted in
the image of the dragon. Have you
seen the dragon? Approach him cau- ) J^
tiously, for no mortal can survive the j
sight of his entire body. The Eastern
dragon is not the gruesome monster of
medieval imagination, but the genius
of strength and goodness. He is the
spirit of change, therefore of life
itself. We associate him with the su-
preme power or that sovereign cause
which pervades everything, taking new
forms according to its surroundings,
yet never seen in a final shape. The
77
THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN
dragon is the great mystery itself.
Hidden in the caverns of inaccessible
mountains, or coiled in the unf athomed
depth of the sea, he awaits the time
when he slowly rouses himself into ac-
tivity. He unfolds himself in the storm
clouds ; he washes his mane in the black-
ness of the seething whirlpools. His
claws are in the fork of the lightning,
his scales begin to glisten in the bark
of rain-swept pine-trees. His voice is
heard in the hurricane which, scatter-
ing the withered leaves of the forest,
quickens a new spring. The dragon re-
veals himself only to vanish. He is a
glorious symbolic image of that elas-
ticity of organism which shakes off the
inert mass of exhausted matter. Coil-
ing again and again on his strength, he
sheds his crusted skin amid the battle of
elements, and for an instant stands half
78
THE VOICE FROM WITHIN
revealed by the brilliant shimmer of his
scales. He strikes not till his throat is
touched. Then woe to him who dallies
with the terrible one !
The dragon is said never to be the
same. What flower is? What life?
The secret of knowledge, according to
the Oyomians, was to penetrate behind
the mask which change imposed upon; iaa^
things. So-called facts and forms werel g *
merely incidents beneath which the real , o
life lay hidden. This they loved to il-|(^UJ
lustrate by the Taoist parable of the /J
Real Horse. Once upon a time, it is
related, a king of China was desirous of
procuring the best horse in the world,
wherefore he asked Hakuraku, all-
knowing in horses, to make search far
and wide. After a long time Haku-
raku returned and reported to the
king that a bay mare on a certain pas-
79
THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN
ture was the most perfect horse exist-
ent. Thereupon the king sent vassals
laden with treasures to bring the steed
to his court. When, however, they came
to the place described by Hakuraku
they found not a bay mare, but a black
stallion. This they brought back with
them, and it was found to be the paragon
of equine beauty and strength. To the
true connoisseur of horses the real horse
^^ ' was visible in something beyond the sec-
Jbu ondary features of color and sex. Even
thus it is with all true knowledge, said
the Oyomians.
The orthodox academicians were
doubly hostile to the Oyomei School as
a perversion of their own Neo-Confu-
cianism. The terror of their censorship
lay not so much in open attacks on the
doctrines themselves as in the treacher-
ous and unexpected manner in which
80
THE VOICE FROM WITHIN
they brought punishment upon their
holders.
Yet, in spite of this, the new idea was
fostered and slowly gained ground in
those distant daimiates where censorial
interference was comparatively slight.
It is significant that the two provinces
of Satsuma and Choshiu, from which all
the great statesmen of modern Japan
come, were the chief refuge of this
school of philosophy. Among those of
our generals and admirals who have
distinguished themselves in the Chinese
and Russian wars, many were brought
up as youths in the principles of Oyo-
mei. This it is which makes them
calm amid danger, resourceful in plan-
ning, and ever alert to meet the dictates
of change. It was largely due to the
spread of Oyomian philosophy that
Japan recognized the dragon amid the
* 81
THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN
boiling ferment of the Restoration.
Like the Real Horse of Hakuraku, the
spirit of Old Japan, in spite of the ac-
cretions of centuries, was still manifest.
The Tokugawa authorities had every-
thing to fear from the revolutionary
nature of the Oyomei doctrine, whose
followers hesitated at nothing where
their idea of righteousness was con-
cerned. It was Oshiwo, a celebrated
Oyomei scholar of Osaka, who with all
his disciples rose in open revolt when
the governor of that city refused for
some insufficient reason to grant sub-
sistence to the populace during the
severe famine of 1837. He fired on the
garrison and held them in check while
he distributed the contents of the gov-
ernment granaries to the famished
people, after which he calmly met his
death. His mental attitude may be
82
THE VOICE FROM WITHIN
well seen where, in an interesting philo-
sophical work, he says: " Strike like the
lightning, be terrible like the thunder,
but remember that the sky itself is al-
ways clear above."
Neither the heresy of the Classic
School nor the virility of the Oyo-
mei School would in themselves have
evolved the political conception that led
to the Restoration. They were, after
all, but differentiations in Confucian- .(^r-/^
ism, and Confucianism ordained obedi-^jw^
ence to existing authority provided that Jp^^
the moral Hf e of the community was not
thereby destroyed. Hence it was that
the Ming scholars offered no resistance
to the Manchu rule. It was for this
same reason that the Tokugawa Confu-
cians, whatever their school, never
dreamed of instituting a change in our
political system. Oyomei taught to act,
THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN
but not for what or for whom. This de-
ficiency it was the mission of the His-
torical School to supply.
/ The Historical School was not a
/ heresy, and was therefore rarely re-
garded with suspicion by the censors.
On the contrary, the Tokugawas them-
selves encouraged it, for it accorded
• with their traditional policy. The
movement began early in their rule with
a compilation of the genealogies of the
chief families in the empire and the
publication of histories redounding to
the credit of the Tokugawas themselves.
One important history written by the
chief academician of his time is inter-
esting as evincing the utmost servility
^ to Confucian classicism, in that the au-
f^ jthor tries to prove the descent of the
^^y*^ Mikado from the Chinese sages. By
the beginning of the eighteenth century
84
THE VOICE FROM WITHIN
however, the pure light of research ap-
peared in the study of philology. This
movement, led by Keichiu-acharya and
culminating in the illustrious works of
Motoori and Harumij opened up in our
ancient poetry and history a new vista
of thought. Toward the end of the
century the study of archaeology in-
creased to such an extent that the Toku-
gawa government and wealthy daimios
vied with each other in the collection of
rare manuscripts and encyclopedic
publications on art, while well-known
connoisseurs were appointed to inves-
tigate and record the treasures of the
old monasteries at Nara and Kioto.
All this continued to lift the veil which
had hung for so many centuries over the
past. This was indeed the era of £fir j
najssancein Japan. ^^
The acquisition of historical know-
85
THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN
ledge resulted in the revivification of
Shintoism. The purity of this ancient
cult had been overflowed by successive
waves of continental influence until it
had almost entirely lost its original
character. In the ninth century it be-
came merely a branch of esoteric Bud-
dhism and dehghted in mystic symbol-
ism, while after the fifteenth century it
was entirely Neo- Confucian in spirit
and accepted the cosmic interpretation
of the Taoists. But with the revival of
ancient learning it became divested of
these alien elements. Shintoism as for-
mulated in the beginning of the nine-
teenth century is a religion of ancestrism
— a worship of pristine purity handed
down from the age of the gods. It
^^' teaches adherence to those ancestral
ideals of the Japanese race, simplicity
and honesty, obedience to the ancestral
86
THE VOICE FROM WITHIN
rule vested in the person of the Mikado,
and devotion to the ancestral land on
whose consecrated and divine shores no
foreign conqueror has ever set his foot. .
It called upon Japan to break loose A^
from blind slavery to Chinese and Inj ^
dian ideals, and to rely upon herself. ,/
The historic spirit swept on through
the realms of literature, art, and relig-
ion, until it finally reached the heart of
the samurai. Till then its effects had
been brilliant but not momentous, its
expressions scholarly and therefore lim-
ited in scope. A democratization of
the new message is found in the works
of the early writers of the last century,
among whom the poet-historian Rai-
Sanyo stands foremost in rank. It was
from his lucid pages that the full mean-
ing of the past dawned on the minds of
the young samurai and ronins. Their
87
THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN
memories traveled back to the days
when the imperial sanctity was forgot-
ten and the chrysanthemum cowered be-
fore the cruel blast of Ashikaga arro-
gance, while even the palace itself, with
none so loyal as to undertake its repair,
was sinking in ruin within sight of
the Golden Pavilion of the shoguns.
Sadly they read the poems of some
lonely loyalist who, like a solitary
cuckoo, poured his sad song into the
moonless night.
They dwelt with mingled pride and
sorrow on the story of the Emperor Go-
daigo, who broke the power of the Ka-
makura shogunate and for a time
reestablished legitimate rule. They
thought of his undaunted courage in
raising the country against the usurpers,
of his exile to the distant island of Sado,
of his miraculous escape in a fishing-
88
THE VOICE FROM WITHIN
boat, of his triumphs over the enemy,
and of his fastness in the mountain of
Yoshino,* where he held his court until
the time when the cherry-blossoms cov-
ered his mausoleum with their tribute
of tender homage.
The gaunt image of Masashige rose
before them, that hero who fought for
the Emperor Godaigo knowing that his
cause was already lost. They read how
he it was who first dared answer the im-
perial summons to fight the usurper,
how he planned and carried out the
guerrilla warfare which led to a tem-
porary restitution of the Mikado's
power, and claimed no reward when his
work was accomplished. " What is thy
last wish?" said he to his brother as,
wounded unto death, they both emerged
^ Yoshino, a hill in the Nara prefecture noted from
ancient times for its cherry-blossoms.
89
THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN
from their last terrible battle with the
Ashikaga hosts. Smiling, he listened
to the swift reply, "I wish to be born
again to strike a blow for the Mikado,"
and said, "Though Buddhists teach
that such wishes are sinful and lead to
the hell of Asuras, yet not for once only
but for seven lives do I wish to be re-
bom for that same end " ; then each fell
by the other's sword. They read how
Masatsura, the son of Mashashige, re-
fused the first beauty of the court, who
was deeply attached to him, when the
Mikado offered her to him as a reward
for his hereditary loyalty, pleading that
his life was for death and not love.
; Soon as the memory of past ages
I came over the samurai, the lost glory
of the Son of Heaven flashed upon
them. They saw the Mikado himself
leading his army to victory. They
90
THE VOICE FROM WITHIN
heard their ancestors beating their
shields with their swords, as they sang
the war-song of Otomo, the terrible joy
of dying by the Mikado's side. They
wept when they thought of the shadow
that had come over the throne. They
made pilgrimages to the imperial mau-
soleums, which had long been left to de-
cay, and washed their moss-covered
steps with tears. Who were the Toku-
gawas who dared to stand between them |
and their legitimate sovereign? Oh, to
die— to die for the Mikado I
The historic spirit now stood sword//,
in hand, and the sword was one of no
mean steel. The samurai, like his
weapon, was cold, but never forgot the
fire in which he was forged. His im-
petuosity was always tempered by his
code of honor. In the feudal days
Zen had taught him self-restraint and
91
,1;
THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN
made courteousness the mark of brav-
ery. Confucianism had in the Toku-
gawa period intensified that sense of
duty which made him disregard all ob-
stacles. He did not court useless danger,
for his courage was never questioned.
He marched to certain death not with
the blind fury of fanaticism but with
a set resolution of doing whatever was
demanded of him. The historical spirit
in penetrating his soul made him a new
being. All the devotion which had for-
merly been consecrated to the service of
his immediate liege was now laid at the
feet of the Mikado.
Soon the historical spirit began to
permeate the ranks of the daimios. It
first entered the souls of those Tozama
daimios who, hke the lords of Satsuma
and Choshiu, felt a hereditary animosity
92
THE VOICE FROM WITHIN
to the shogunate. Later on it began to
influence even the princes of the Toku-
gawa family, especially the princes of
Mito and the lords of Echizen. The
scholars of these daimiates, with their
Shinto and Oyomian tendencies, were
the apostles of the Restoration. It is
to be noted that Keiki, last of the sho-
guns, who voluntarily gave up the reins
of government to the Mikado, was a
prince of Mito.
The hour had come when dreams
were to be translated into action, and
the sword was to leave the quiet of the
scabbard and leap forth with the fury
of lightning.
Strange whispers traveled from the
cities to the villages. The lotus trem-
bled above the turbid waters, the stars
began to pale before the dawn, and that
93
THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN
mighty hush which bespeaks the com-
ing storm fell on the nation. Oyomei
was abroad and the dragon was calling
forth the hurricane. It was at this
moment that the West appeared on our
horizon.
94
V
THE WHITE DISASTER
TO MOST Eastern nations the advent
of the West has been by no means
an unmixed blessing. Thinking to
welcome the benefits of increased com-
merce, they have become the victims of
foreign imperialism; beHeving in the
philanthropic aims of Christian mission-
aries, they have bowed before the mes-
sengers of military aggression. For
them the earth is no longer filled with
that peace which pillowed their content-
ment. If the guilty conscience of some
European nations has conjured up the
specter of a Yellow Peril, may not the
suffering soul of Asia wail over the
realities of the White Disaster.
96
THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN
To the mind of the average West-
erner it may seem but natural to regard
with feelings of unmingled triumph
that world of to-day in which or-
ganization has made of society a huge
machine ministering to its own neces-
sities. It is the rapid development of
mechanical invention which has created
the present era of locomotion and specu-
lation, a development which is working
itself out into various expressions of
commerciahsm and industrialism, ac-
companied by a tendency toward the
universal occidentalization of etiquette
f and language. This movement, result-
[ ing in a rapid expansion of wealth and
' prestige, originated in a profound reali-
zation of the glory of manhood, of com-
radeship, and of mutual trust. The
restlessness that constantly moves its
home from the steamer to the hotel,
96
THE WHITE DISASTER
from the railway station to the bathing
resort, has brought about the possibiHty
of a cosmopolitan culture. The nine-
teenth century has witnessed a wonder-
ful spread in the blessings of scientific
sanitation and surgery. Knowledge as
well as finance has become organized,
and large communities are made capa-
ble of collective action and the develop-
ment of a single personal consciousness.
To the inhabitant of the West all
this may well be food for satisfaction;
to him it may seem inconceivable that
the bland irony of China the machine f^^i
appears as a toy, not an ideal. The ven-
erable East still distinguishes ^^^ween,^ ^
means and ends. The West is for pro-i . .
gress, but progress toward what?
When material efficiency is complete,
what end, asks Asia, will have been ac-
' 97
THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN
complished? When the passion of fra-
ternity has cuhninated in universal co-
operation, what purpose is it to serve?
If mere self-interest, where do we find
the boasted advance?
The picture of Western glory unfor-
tunately has a reverse. Size alone does
not constitute true greatness, and the
enjoyment of luxury does not always
result in refinement. The individuals
who go to the making up of the great
machine of so-called modern civiliza-
tion become the slaves of mechanical
habit and are ruthlessly dominated by
the monster they have created. In spite
of the vaunted freedom of the West,
true individuality is destroyed in the
c \ competition for wealth, and happiness
^ • / and contentment are sacrificed to an in-
I cessant craving for more. The West
takes pride in its emancipation from
98
THE WHITE DISASTER
medieval superstition, but what of that
idolatrous worship of wealth that has
taken its place? What sufferings and
discontent lie hidden behind the gor-,
geous mask of the present? The voice
of socialism is a wail over the agonies
of Western economics,— the tragedy of.
Capital and Labor.
But with a hunger unsatisfied by its
myriad victims in its own broad lands,
the West also seeks to prey upon the
East. The advance of Europe in Asia
means not merely the imposition of so-
cial ideals which the East holds to be
crude if not barbarous, but also the sub-
version of all existing law and author-
ity. The Western ships which brought
their civilization also brought con^uests^
jgrjjtefitojates, ex-territorial jurisdiction,
lucres of influence, and what not of
debasement, till the name of the Oriental
99
THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN
has become a synonym for the degen-
erate, and the word " native " an epithet
for slaves.
In Japan the race of those fiery pa-
triots who fifty years ago shouted,
"Away with the Western barbarians 1"
with all the lusty enthusiasm of the
Chinese Boxers, is entirely gone. The
tremendous change which has since
come over our political life, and the ma-
terial advantages we have gained by
foreign contact, have so completely
revolutionized national sentiment in re-
gard to the West that it has become al-
most impossible for us to conceive what
it was that so aroused the antagonism of
our grandfathers. On the contrary, we
have become so eager to identify our-
selves with European civilization in-
stead of Asiatic that our continental
neighbors regard us as renegades— nay,
100
THE WHITE DISASTER
even as an embodiment of the White
Disaster itself. But our mental stand-
point of a few generations back was
that of the conservative Chinese patriot
of to-day, and we saw in Western ad-
vance but the probable encompassing
of our ruin. To the down-trodden Ori-
ental the glory of Europe is but the
humiliation of Asia.
If we place ourselves in the position
of a Chinese patriot of to-day we shall
be able to understand how the march of
contemporary events appeared to our
grandfathers. Their fears were not al-
together without reason, for to the
wounded imagination of Orientals his-
tory told of the gradual advance of
the White Disaster which was descend-
ing on Asia. The Italian Renaissance
marks the time when, freed from its
chains, the roving spirit of Western en-
101
THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN
terprise first began to seize upon any
corner of the globe where was aught to
be gained. When Marco Polo returned
from the Chinese court, he bore tidings
of the untold treasures of the extreme
Orient. America was merely an acciden-
tal discovery on the part of Spain in her
attempt to reach the coveted wealth of
India. We recalled those days of Por-
tuguese cruelty and Dutch treachery,
when the cow's hide gained a colony and
the concession for a factory resulted in
the establishment of an empire.
The beginning of the seventeenth
century shows the rise of the East India
companies of the French, Dutch, Dan-
ish, and English, the gratification of
whose political ambitions, however, re-
mained as yet unsatisfied owing to the
struggles of mutual rivalry, the solidity
of the Mussulman power of Delhi, and
102
THE WHITE DISASTER
their awe of that great Turkish empire
which still bravely bore the brunt of
Western advance and often hurled it
back to the walls of Vienna. But the
brightness of the Crescent was fast
waning before the combined persistence
of the West, and soon the disastrous
treaty of Kutchuk-Kainarji inaugu-
rated the imposition of Russian inter-
ference in the affairs of the Porte. In
1803 the last of the Grand Moguls be-
came a British pensioner. In 1839,
Abdul Med j id ascended the throne of
Osmanli under the "protection" ofj
European powers.
With the increase in credit and cap-
ital during the latter half of the eight-
eenth century, the inventive energy of
European industrialism is set in motion.
Coal takes the place of wood in smelt-
ing, and the flying shuttle, the spinning-
THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN
jenny, the mule, the power-loom, and
the steam-engine all spring up in for-
/Jomidable array. Commercialism makes
the very life of the West depend upon
'her finding markets for her goods. Her
Q role is now to sell, and that of the East
-^ to buy. War is declared from her
factories, and the protests of her more
humane statesmen are drowned in the
noise of thundering mills. What
chance has individualized Eastern trade
against the sweeping batteries of or-
ganized commerce? Cheapness and
competition, like the mitrailleuse, under
whose cover they advance, now sweep
away the crafts. The economic life of
the Orient, founded on land and la-
bor and deprived of a protective tariff
through high-handed diplomatic action,
succumbs to the army of the machine
and capital.
104
THE WHITE DISASTER
What has become of India? It is to-
day a country where the names of Asoka
and Vikramaditya are even forgotten.
It is a country of rajas whose breasts
are starry with dishonor, and of national
congresses that dare not protest. Bur-
ma was in existence but yesterday: in
the rubies of Thebaw cries the inno-
cent blood of Mandalay. The Kohi-
noor is even as a teardrop of Golconda.
What need to mention the painful
comedies enacted in Persia and Siam or
to call attention to the "protectorate"
established by France over Tonkin?
Protectorate I Against whom?
In 1842 a Christian nation forces
opium on China at the mouth of the can-
non and extorts Hongkong. In 1860,
on a slight pretext, the joint armies of
France and England invade Peking and
sack the Summer Palace, whose treasures
106
THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN
are now the pride of European mu-
seums, while the Russians always main-
tain a steady encroachment upon the
hereditary domains of the Celestial Em-
pire along the borders of the Amur
and Hi. The kindly intervention of the
Triple Coalition after the Japanese
war was but a farce, for thereby Russia
gained Port Arthur, Germany Kiau-
chau, and France a tighter grasp on
Yunnan. It is true that the defilement
of their sacred shrines goaded the Box-
ers to a passionate outburst of fury ; but
what could their old-fashioned arms
avail against the combined armies of
the aUied powers? Their ill-judged
efforts only resulted in the heaping of
indignities upon China and the pay-
ment by her of exorbitant indemnities.
In spite of repeated promises of evacua-
tion, Russia has endeavored to establish
106
THE WHITE DISASTER
herself permanently in Manchuria, and
the persecuted inhabitants of that prov-
ince behold the graveyards of their be-
loved forefathers turned into railway
stations, while Cossack horses find sta-
bling in the sacred Temple of Heaven.
If Asia was old-fashioned, was Europe J
just? If China tried to lift her head,'
if the worm turned in its agony, did not
Europe at once raise the cry of the Yel-
low Peril? Verily, the glory of the
West is the humiliation of Asia.
To Japan the armed embassy of the
United States of America in 1853
seemed a dread image of that White
Disaster whose advent had proved so
fatal to other Eastern countries.
Eleven years before that event the
Opium War in China had exposed the
unscrupulous nature of Western ag-
gression. The Dutch, who kept us in-
107
THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN
formed of the European encroachment
on Asia, did not hesitate to enhance the
value of their friendship by painting
the deeds of other Western nations in
the darkest colors. In fact, unfortu-
nately, we had already had some experi-
ence of foreign rapacity in the Russian
advance from the north.
It is a curious coincidence that the
first European nation — and let us hope
it may be the last — whom we have met
in battle array is the power whose acts
first warned us of the possibility of for-
eign complications. Russia, sweeping
down from Siberia and Kamchatka, long
ago laid her hands upon our territory of
Sakhalin and the Kurile Islands. In
the end of the eighteenth century the
Russians committed ravages in Yezo
itself, and in 1806 the Tokugawas had
to place a military governor in Hako-
108
THE WHITE DISASTER
date to guard against their further dep-
redations. Alarming stories of North-
ern encroachments were poured into our
excited ears, and many daimios offered
of themselves to chase back the intrud-
ers. In 1830 Nariaki of Mito, a pow-
erful prince of the Tokugawa family,
proposed to settle in Yezo with all his
retainers and the entire population of
his daimiate. He melted all the bronze
bells of the temples in his territory, cast-
ing a number of immense cannon, and
drilled his samurai in preparation for
an emergency. His zeal was, however,
misconstrued by the Tokugawa govern-
ment and he was obliged to abdicate in
favor of his son and remain in retire-
ment. Russophobes were imprisoned
for spreading false alarms, and many
died in confinement. It is interesting
to find among some of their memoirs
109
THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN
prophecies of Russian aggrandizement
in Asia which have been but too truly
fulfilled.
The appearance of American war-
ships in the bay of Yedo was a mighty
shock. Hitherto the alarms of foreign
attack had meant but little to the coun-
try at large, for it was a long cry to
Hakodate or Nagasaki ; but now within
a day's march of the city of Yedo lay
the black hulks of a formidable fleet
whose admiral refused to retire until a
treaty was signed. Recollection of the
Tartar armada flashed through the
minds of our grandfathers. Was the
samurai to be intimidated in his own
waters? Was not the divine land al-
ways prepared to repel an invasion?
What right had a foreign nation to im-
pose a commerce which we did not want,
a friendship which we did not ask? To
110
THE WHITE DISASTER
arms I Jhoi! Jhoi! Away with the
barbarians! The alarm-bells clanged
throughout the country. Foam-cov-
ered riders rushed through every castle
gate, spreading the momentous news.
Spears were torn from their racks and
ancient armor was eagerly dragged
from dust-covered caskets. Night and
day could be heard the clanging of steel
on anvils forging the accoutrements of
war. The old prince of Mito was sum-
moned from his hermitage to take com-
mand, and his cannon lined the principal
points of defense. Buddhists wore away »
their rosaries in invoking Kartikiya, the
war-god, and Shinto priests fasted while ^
they called on the sea and the tempest[
to destroy the invader.
The historic spirit that had been
smoldering in our national conscious-
ness only waited for this moment to
111
THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN
burst forth in a fiery expression of
unity. Custom and formalism were
alike forgotten in this hour of common
danger, and for the first time in two
hundred years the daimios were asked
by the Tokugawa government to delib-
erate over a matter of state. For the
first time in seven centuries the Shogun
sent a special envoy to the Mikado to
consult about the policy of the empire,
and for the first time in the history of
our nation, the high and the low alike
were invited to offer suggestions as to
what steps should be taken for the pro-
tection of the ancestral land. We be-
came one, and the Night of Asia fled
forever before the rays of the Rising
Sun.
112
VI
THE CABINET AND THE BOUDOIR
HAD it not been for the timely ar-
rival of the American Embassy
and the determined attitude which it
took in regard to Japan's relations with
the outside world, we might have en-
tered upon an era of internal discord
culminating in a civil war far worse
than anything that preceded the Resto-
ration of 1868. The immediate effect
of the arrival of the American Embassy
was to reconsolidate the fast-waning
power of the Tokugawa government.
Putting in abeyance all minor matters
of dispute, the entire nation looked to
' 113
THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN
the Shogun, as the representative of all
existing authority, to lead the forces of
Japan against what was regarded as a
Western invasion. Thus the Toku-
gawa government was given a new
lease of life and its final overthrow
postponed for fifteen years, during
which time ultra-reformists were kept
from running riot and the nation was
given a chance to prepare itself for the
momentous change which was to come.
Had the Tokugawas better under-
stood their own position, they might
under this new condition of affairs,
have retained their power for an in-
definite period of time; but, unfortu-
nately for them, there developed out of
the rivalry between the cabinet and the
boudoir an element of discord which
brought about the ultimate downfall of
the entire Tokugawa system.
114
CABINET AND BOUDOIR
Like all Eastern monarchies, the To-
kugawa shogunate led a twofold exist-
ence, that of the outer ministry and that
of the inner household. Of these two
modes of expression, the former exhib-
its the sovereign as one who represents
the united political wisdom of the coun-
try handed down through a long suc-
cession of experiences, the latter as an
autocrat whose will is law. The ideal
ruler, who stopped in the midst of a ban-
quet to listen to the grievances of his
people and preferred the discourse of
sour-visaged councilors to the sweet
music of the court beauties, confined
himself exclusively to the first role. But
even in Confucian lands human nature
is weak. The fortunes of a dynasty
have often fluctuated with the adher-
ence of its representative to one or the
other of these policies ; and it is a signifi-
116
THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN
cant fact that in Chinese history we find
the preponderance of the household in-
fluence always resulting in rebellion,
whereas that of the cabinet is over-
thrown only by the aggression of some
foreign power. In more recent days a
sort of compromise has generally been
effected between these influences, virtu-
ally creating a twofold expression of
the sovereign will. This arrangement
has occasioned many awkward compli-
cations, especially where diplomatic re-
lations with foreign nations have been
concerned: the household may deny
what the cabinet has afiirmed, and vice
versa.
The power of the Chinese imperial
household, to whose deliberations, ac-
cording to Celestial customs, no male
was admitted, was often wielded by the
Empress or some lady politician who
116
CABINET AND BOUDOIR
from her boudoir pulled the reins of the
government to the dismay of cabinet
ministers. Some of these women were
possessed of remarkable genius and suc-
ceeded in assuming entire control of the
state. Empress Lo of the Hang and
Empress Wu of the Tang dynasty are
well-known examples of the usurpation
of full sovereignty by a woman. The
present Empress Dowager of China
affords a remarkable instance of the as-
cendancy which the household may
possess over the Tsung-li-yamen, or cab-
inet.
Under the Tokugawa shogunate
there was constant friction between the
cabinet and the boudoir. The minis-
ters, chosen from among the ablest rep-
resentatives of those daimiates which
had been created by the Tokugawas,
strove to maintain the hereditary policy
117
THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN
of lyeyasu, which had in their eyes al-
most the authority of a national consti-
tution. They were for the most part
astute statesmen who thoroughly un-
derstood the spirit of the nation, and
never, in spite of their absolutism, out-
raged the feelings of the public. It was
owing to their influence that the Sho-
gun, even if personally of weak charac-
ter, generally commanded the respect
of his subjects. When, however, the
Shogun fell under the influence of the
boudoir, he became the hated despot
who, regardless of public opinion,
passed measures inimical to the national
welfare. Unfortunately, in these cases
the cabinet made but slight protest,
for the code of the samurai forbade re-
sistance to the will of the overlord.
The ladies of Yedo Castle had been
active participators in the Tokugawa
118
CABINET AND BOUDOIR
rule even in the time of lyeyasu, who
found among them many trusted
friends and able councilors. It formed
a part of his system to send them on se-
cret and delicate missions, and they had
come to be a well-recognized power in
the government of his successors. In
the case of a shogun at all inclined to be
autocratic, the ladies surrounding his
private life exerted an immense influ-
ence. Either in the person of his
mother, his wife, his nurse, or his favor-
ite, they so constantly influenced his
feelings and sought to mold his ac-
tions that he needed to be a man of very
strong character to remain untram-
meled by these silken bonds. They
possessed a hereditary policy of their
own, which, based on woman's instinct
of conservatism and hatred of compro-
mise, was the dread of all cabinet minis-
119
THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN
ters who attempted reforms. Their in-
terference was not like the temporary
meddling of a Madame Pompadour or
a Duchesse de Montespan, but that of a
whole line of female cardinals. It was
owing to the antagonism of the boudoir
that the Tokugawa statesman Rakuwo
failed to accomplish his proposed reor-
ganization of local government. It
was through their influence that Mid-
zuno-Echizen was prevented from en-
forcing his sumptuary laws, which aimed
at the correction of many existent
abuses. During the closing years of the
Tokugawa government many wise mea-
sures proposed by the cabinet met with
defeat owing to the ascendancy in
power of the boudoir.
At the time of the first American Em-
bassy, the reigning Shogun, twelfth of
his line, was a young and weak prince
120
CABINET AND BOUDOIR
who had, however, in the person of Abe-
Isenokami, an able prime minister who
showed a remarkable grasp of the situa-
tion and inaugurated that enlightened
policy to which Japan owes her present
position. The real significance of his
acts has been quite obscured beneath a
mass of conflicting criticism and the
ignominy which attaches to the states-
men of a fallen dynasty. Even his ne-
gotiation of a treaty of amity with
Commodore Perry in the face of a dis-
senting majority has been minimized
by his detractors, yet it was this treaty
which first brought us in touch with the
rest of the world. His moderation was
not cowardice; if he had allowed himself
to be carried away by the belligerent
spirit which animated the daimios,
Japan might have made a pitiful exhi-
bition of herself. A refusal to treat
121
THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN
with the Embassy would probably have
resulted in a bombardment, and in spite
of the fiery bravery of the samurai,
what would their old-fashioned cannon
and fortifications have availed against
the well-equipped Americans? It is
due to the full recognition by Abe-
Isenokami of our unpreparedness for
war that Japan was saved from any
such disaster. Our sincere thanks are
also due to the American admiral, who
showed infinite patience and fairness in
his negotiations. Oriental nations never
forget a kindness, and international
kindnesses are unfortunately extremely
rare. The name of Commodore Perry
has become so dear to us that, on the
fiftieth anniversary of his arrival, the
people erected a monument at the spot
where he landed.
It is not to be supposed that Abe-
122
CABINET AND BOUDOIR
Isenokami realized the full importance
of foreign intercourse, or even welcomed
it. Like other men of his time, he
merely considered it as a necessary evil.
His knowledge of the West was but
scanty, and he left the burden of treating
with the Americans to his minister of for-
eign aiFairs, Hotta-Bitchiunokami, who
later succeeded to the premiership after
the death of Abe. He recognized nev-
ertheless how necessary it was for Ja-
pan to acquire Western knowledge, so
that she might be able to defend herself
against foreign invasion. This he was
at length able to impress upon the To-
kugawa authorities, and the warlike
daimios were prevailed upon to keep
quiet during his lifetime. He opened,
under government patronage, a school
in which various branches of foreign
science were for the first time openly
123
THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN
taught: the present Imperial Univer-
sity of Tokio is a development from
this school. Hitherto the pursuit of
foreign knowledge except that of medi-
cine had been interdicted, and students
had been obliged to do their work in
secret and under great difficulties.
Now, however, any one who proved him-
self worthy was promoted and en-
couraged in his work, while our soldiers
were trained in the Dutch and French
systems of drill. Both war-ships and
merchant vessels were ordered from
Holland, and young samurai were sent
to study their construction and manage-
ment; this was the beginning of the
present Japanese navy. The prohibi-
tion against building ships beyond a
certain size was revoked, and many
daimios, like those of Mito and Sat-
suma, vied in constructing them.
124
CABINET AND BOUDOIR
The main idea of Abe-Isenokami
seemed to have been to consolidate the
Tokugawa rule on a new basis. He ap-
pears to have appreciated the fact that a
great change had come over the nation,
and that the fast-decaying prestige of
the Tokugawa government could be
saved from complete destruction only by
the assimilation of new energy. It was
his intention to make the shogunate the
center of all the forces that moved the
empire. It was with this idea that he
initiated the custom of approaching the
Mikado and the assembly of daimios
on all questions of state: a great mis-
take in the eyes of Tokugawa histori-
ans. He strengthened the allegiance
of the lord of Satsuma, most powerful
of the daimios, by bringing about the
marriage of his daughter to the Sho-
gun. He kept the old prince of Mito
125
THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN
in good humor by making active prepa-
rations for war. He corrected many-
existing abuses, instituted reforms in
administration, appointed able men
even from the lower ranks of the samu-
rai to responsible positions, and did all
he could for the revival of Tokugawa
prestige.
Next to the foreign question the most
vital problem of the day was as to who
should succeed to the shogunate on the
death of the present incumbent, a child-
less and confirmed invalid. Indeed, this
latter question proved itself perhaps
the more important of the two, for the
ultimate downfall of the Tokugawas
resulted from the manner in which it
was finally settled. Among the Toku-
gawa princes Keiki, the fourth son of
the old prince of Mito, seemed the most
suitable candidate for the succession.
126
CABINET AND BOUDOIR
He was adored by the daimios and
samurai, not only on account of his
father, but for his own fine personality
and ability. His devotion to the Mi-
kado was well known, and it was said
that the court of Kioto would be
pleased to have him as shogun. Abe
saw in Keiki's succession a great possi-
bility for solidifying the Tokugawa
rule, as an able shogun backed by the
daimios and the Kioto court, might
accomplish almost anything. There
was but one difficulty in the way of his
appointment, and that was that the
present Shogun and the ladies of his
court disliked him. As a samurai and
vassal, Abe's preeminent duty was to
obey the wishes of his master, while as a
minister he recognized the power of the
ladies of Yedo Castle. He knew that
to the conservative policy of the bou-
127
THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN
doir his various innovations were dis-
tasteful in the extreme, and that it
feared the appointment of a strong-
minded shogun, such as Keiki promised
to be, who might refuse to become a
mere puppet in its hands. On this ac-
count Abe dared not show his hand, for
he was aware of the great power which
the boudoir could bring to bear upon
the cabinet to overthrow all its efforts
toward a reorganization of the Toku-
gawa rule. His attitude toward the
problem of succession was so cautious
as to appear almost indecisive. Had he
been spared a few years longer, he might
have accomplished his object; but in
1857 he succumbed to a short illness
and died at the age of thirty-nine.
Thus perished the last great statesman
who might have retrieved the sinking
fortimes of the Tokugawas.
128
CABINET AND BOUDOIR
Hotta-Bitchiunokami, who succeeded
Abe as prime minister, although he did
not possess the same abihty, tried to fol-
low out the policy of his predecessor.
He did not command the respect of the
Kioto court and unwittingly alienated
the affections of the daimios. He was
almost without supporters by the time
he left Yedo, in the spring of 1858, to
obtain the imperial ratification to the
new treaty whose terms had been drawn
up by him and the American consul,
Townsend Harris. Times were indeed
changed when a Tokugawa prime min-
ister was obliged to go in person to
Kioto to answer the queries of those
court nobles who had formerly trem-
bled in his presence. But the Kioto
court had already tasted power and
would fain drink to the full. To the
members of the imperial court, so long
» 129
THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN
isolated from participation in affairs of
state, the question of our national poli-
tics was doubly unintelligible, while
their conservatism recoiled from the
very mention of foreign intercourse. It
was a difficult task for Hotta, who sin-
cerely believed in the necessity of for-
eign intercourse and trade, to explain
these things to a court which heard of
them for the first time, and consequently
his mission ended in failure. They
asked many perplexing questions and
could not understand why the citizens
of a foreign nation should not obey the
laws of the country in which they came
to live.
The unpopularity of Hotta afforded
an opportunity for the boudoir to ob-
tain control of the government, and dur-
ing his sojourn in Kioto the ladies of
Yedo Castle replaced him by a pre-
130
CABINET AND BOUDOIR
mier who had agreed to side with them
in the choice- of a future shogun. The
new minister, lyi-Kamon, lord of Hi-
kone, was the last exponent of Toku-
gawa autocracy: he it was who accom-
plished the terrible coup d'etat of 1859.
Though a choice of the boudoir, and
representative of its policy, Hikone
was possessed of no servile spirit. He
was a loyal daimio of the old type,
ready to carry out the wishes of his
liege through fire or water. Descended
from the greatest general among the
forces of lyeyasu, his traditional loy-
alty rebelled at the encroachments of
the Kioto court and the daimios upon
the time-honored prestige of the Toku-
gawas. To him the question of suc-
cession to the shogunate was purely a
family matter for the Tokugawas to
settle, and one in which no one else had
181
THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN
any right to interfere. To him, the
signing of treaties with foreign nations
was well within the prerogative in-
trusted to the Shogun from ancient
days, and it was a mistake to have ever
consulted the court nobles or the dai-
mios about it. He recognized the fact
that the country was undergoing a
crisis, but believed that with firmness the
authority of the Tokugawas could again
be made thoroughly autocratic. It was
with this determination that, in the
summer of 1858, he answered the sum-
mons of the dying Shogun, who had
been urged to send for him by the ladies
of Yedo Castle.
The first act of Hikone after accept-
ing the premiership was to declare the
young prince lyemochi, of the house of
Kishiu, who had been the choice of the
dying Shogun, ruler instead of Keiki
132
CABINET AND BOUDOIR
of Mito, the candidate of the daimios.
lyemochi, who was but thirteen at the
time of his appointment, ruled as the
thirteenth Shogun of the Tokugawas
until the year 1866, when he died and
was succeeded by Keiki. Hikone's sec-
ond act was publicly to disgrace those
daimios who had been recognized lead-
ers of the opposition in regard to the
question of succession. The old prince
of Mito and the lord of Echizen were
forced to resign their offices, and mem-
bers of the Abe party, from Hotta
downward, were degraded in rank.
His third act was to sign commercial
treaties with various Western nations,
in utter disregard of the wishes of the
Mikado, to whom a report of his actions
was sent by the common post.
All these measures, and especially the
last, were in the nature of bravado
133
THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN
against national sentiment. The court
highly resented the audacity of the
new Tokugawa minister, and Kioto be-
came the center where emissaries of
the disaffected daimios met to conspire
and plan countermoves. The prince
of Mito received imperial instructions
to call an assemblage of the daimios
to reform the Tokugawa cabinet. Hi-
kone, who watched all these proceed-
ings through his spies, was not slow to
move. In the spring of 1859 nearly
forty of the more prominent agita-
tors were arrested and either beheaded
or imprisoned for high treason. All
were famous men of the time, among
whom were included scholars, poets,
and artists. One court lady, also im-
plicated, was exiled. Many of the
kuges were compelled to shave their
heads and retire from the world. The
134
CABINET AND BOUDOIR
most deplorable result of this coup d'etat
was the loss to Japan of a great num-
ber of men of remarkable genius.
Among those beheaded were Yoshida-
Shoyin of Choshiu, precursor and in-
spirer of Kido and Marquis Ito, and
Hashimoto-Sanai of Echizen, a states-
man of a Mazzini-like intellect, for
whose death alone the Tokugawa gov-
ernment was said to have deserved its
downfall. Our Garibaldi, the great
Saigo of Satsuma, had a hairbreadth es-
cape from the hands of Hikone's min-
ions.
This sudden display of despotism
quelled the national spirit for a time,
but the silence which followed was omi-
nous. Assassination always lurks in
the shadow of an absolute tyranny. In
the late spring of 1860 it was snowing
heavily and the light flakes mingled
135
THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN
with the falling cherry-blossoms. The
road from the palace of the lord of
Hikone to the Sakurada gate of Yedo
Castle was completely deserted as lyi-
Kamon and his misuspecting retinue
passed on their way to pay the usual
morning homage to the Shogun. Sud-
denly they were attacked by seventeen
ronins, mostly of the Mito clan, and
Hikone was killed almost before his
body-guard had time to draw their
swords. The assassins fell upon their
own weapons, leaving a few of their
comrades to explain to the nearest au-
thorities that their deed had been a
stroke for national liberty and not an
act of private vengeance.
Deplorable as this tragedy was, it
had a helpful effect on the country, and
showed that reawakened Japan was
determined to resist to the utmost any
136
CABINET AND BOUDOIR
attempts at the reenforcement of des-
potism. Perhaps a justification of
such acts lies in the fact that assas-
sination is the only weapon of a dis-
armed patriotism. No constitutional
protest would have availed against
the iron sway of Tokugawa autoc-
racy: yet its icy structure melted
away like the snows of Sakurada be-
neath the warm blood of the devoted
ronins.
A profound feeling of uneasiness
possessed the nation, and the popular
imagination was excited in various
ways by those who had at heart the com-
plete restoration of authority to the Mi-
kado. Placards denouncing the usur-
pation of the Shogun were posted in
public places by invisible hands. Mys-
tic tablets foretelling the doom of the
Tokugawas were reported to have been
137
THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN
wafted from the heavens to various
parts of the empire. Masked bands
waylaid the official mail and intercepted
the transport of government revenue,
the money being given to the poor. A
great number of samurai forsook their
liege lords and assembled in Kioto to
offer their swords for the service of
the Mikado. The acts of these ronins
were characterized more by symbolic
demonstration than by open, violence
against the shogunate. To cite one in-
stance of their methods: a band of ro-
nins entered the mausoleum of the
Ashikagas and decapitated the statues
of the thirteen shoguns of that dynasty,
displaying their heads near the Shi jo
bridge. This childish act had a strange
influence over the Japanese mind, with
its Oriental love of symbolism, and was
even more potent than the Sakurada
138
CABINET AND BOUDOIR
affair in arousing the feelings of the
people. It spared us the horror of an
assassination, yet had all the ghastly elo-
quence of one.
After the death of Hikone the Toku-
gawa caBinet no longer possessed a
minister able to cope with the situation,
and its attempts at popular concilia-
tion were interpreted as confessions
of weakness. Ando-Tsushimanokami,
who succeeded Hikone as senior mem-
ber of the cabinet, prevailed upon the
Kioto court to bestow the hand of the
Princess Kazunomiya, sister of the
Mikado, on the Shogun. This political
marriage was celebrated in 1861 with
great pomp, but did not lessen the
existing tension. Public sentiment
against the Tokugawas had reached
such a point that fictitious stories about
the maltreatment of the royal bride were
readily believed. The prime minister
139
THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN
was even accused of holding the prin-
cess as a hostage for the acquiescence of
the court in the despotic measures of
his predecessor. The following year
he was attacked by ronins while on his
way to the palace of the Shogun, but the
would-be assassins were unsuccessful in
their attempt on his life. Ando, who
was a fine swordsman, cut down two of
his assailants while his body-guard des-
patched the rest. These repeated at-
tacks on the Tokugawa ministers were
significant of the tendency of events,
and forty of the more powerful dai-
mios received an imperial summons to
protect Kioto. The throne once more
became the real seat of authority, and
Yedo Castle but the home of its chief
vassal. The boudoir, in attempting to
crush the cabinet, had dealt a death-
blow to the entire Tokugawa govern-
ment.
140
VII
THE TRANSITION
THE eight years that intervene be-
tween the death of Hikone in
1860 and the Restoration of 1868, when
his Majesty the present Emperor of
Japan assumed the reins of govern-
ment, are memorable for the wealth of
energy which was displayed by the na-
tion in adopting a rapid series of po-
litical changes. The dragon-spirit of
change was constantly urging the na-
tion after new ideals. Even the busy
years that followed the Restoration
could not equal in activity this short
period, into which were compressed the
germs of all later movements. *We are
141
THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN
reminded of those great transition
periods of European history when
forms become formless in order to cre-
ate new forms. Like the initiators of
the Italian Renaissance, we had to solve
the double problem of restoring the
old while absorbing the new. Like the
much-abused French Revolution, so
rich in idealization, our Restoration is
characterized by an exuberant desire
for self-sacrifice on the part of its en-
thusiasts. It was due to this feeling of
patriotic ardor that the samurai vol-
untarily gave up his swords, the
daimio his fiefs, and the Shogun his
hereditary authority.
The turmoil of the Restoration was
not confined to Kioto and Yedo, but
found expression in all parts of the
empire. Everywhere famihes were di-
vided by their varying allegiance to the
142
THE TRANSITION
Mikado or to the Shogun, the son op-
posing the father, the younger brother
the elder. Kioto became the headquar-
ters of intrigue and the breeding-place
of extreme views. The Restoration
had really begun when the daimios were
summoned to protect the imperial per-
son, and now the court, strengthened
by their presence at Kioto, began to
dictate terms to the Shogun. There
was no question about the restitution of
supreme authority to the Mikado, for
this was a consummation universally de-
sired and already half accomplished;
but as regart^s the method of adminis-
tering the government there were many
opinions. Two great parties, the Fed-
eralists and the Imperialists, each rep-
resentative of a different political sys-
tem, gathered about the throne. These
alternately gained the upper hand until
143
THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN
both became united in a third party, the
Unionists, which laid the foundations
of our present administrative system.
The ascendancy of these different
parties each in its turn marks the suc-
cessive steps by which the poHtical Hfe
of the nation was returning to its an-
cient form. We had now reached a
point where the possibihty of assuming
an international position opened before
us a mighty vista. The dragon was
curving backward for his final spring.
It was a curious example of social em-
bryology that Japan should have as-
sumed atavistic forms before its rebirth.
Of the two original parties, the Fed-
eralists, under the leadership of the
lord of Satsuma, represented the vari-
ous daimios. Their position prevented
them from welcoming any abrupt
change in the government, and they
144
THE TRANSITION
hoped for some sort of federation
whereby they might control the sho-
gunate. Their ideal government was
that of the end of the sixteenth century,
when, before the consolidation of the
Tokugawa shogunate, the newly uni-
fied empire was governed by a council
made up of five of the most powerful
daimios; in fact, they wished for a re-
vival of the feudal age. Their for-
eign policy made a virtue of necessity,
and, like the shogunate, accepted the
inevitable in commercial relationships
with the West.
The Imperialists sought their ideal
further back in our history than the
Federalists, and desired the restitution
of imperial bureaucracy as it had ex-
isted before the feudal period. It was
not only radical, but revolutionary in
its propositions, inasmuch as it aimed
^0 145
THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN
at the abolition of the shogunate and
even of the daimiates. Those who com-
posed the Imperial party were the
kuges, hereditarily connected with the
throne, the ronins, and the Shintoists,
the ardor of the last augmented by reli-
gious zeal for the descendant of the Sun
Goddess. The lord of Choshiu, whose
family had long secretly nursed a feud
with the Tokugawas, also joined the
rank of the Imperialists. All of these
were fired with a burning enthusiasm
for the cause of the Mikado. They had
no foreign policy except that of antago-
nism. This was due not so much to
their hatred of the West as to their ex-
asperation with the shogunate for
signing treaties with the foreigner re-
gardless of the wishes of the Mikado.
The Unionists, who later appeared
on the scene, were men of advanced
146
THE TRANSITION
thought who considered that the unity
of Japan should be accomplished at
any cost, and that the crisis through
which we were passing involved inter-
national as well as national problems.
All had received scholastic training, for
the most part in the Oyomei School;
they had also acquired a certain amount
of Western knowledge, the assimilation
of which the liberal policy of Abe-
Isenokami had rendered possible. They
were to be found even among the Toku-
gawa samurai, the late Count Katsu-
Awa being a noteworthy example. The
main strength of this party, however,
lay in the young samurai of Satsuma,
Choshiu, and Tosa, whose patriotism
furnished the backbone of New Japan,
and the survivors of whom now com-
mand deep respect as the "Elder
Statesmen."
147
THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN
The Unionists, second to none in
their adoration of the Mikado, worked
for the full restoration of his sover-
eignty; but their theory of administra-
tion, in returning to the democratic
ideas of ancient China, stretched still
further back into antiquity even than
those of the others. In the ideahzed
Confucian state all men were equal and
the head of the government ruled, not
on account of his descent, but by virtue
of his personal rectitude. Wisdom was
sought in a council of elders, and popu-
lar opinion was consulted in various
ways. All should take up arms against
an invasion; but as soon as war ceased
the sword should be beaten again into
the plowshare and the works of peace
resumed. European and American re-
publics, as at first understood by our
scholars, reminded them curiously of
148
THE TRANSITION
the Golden Age of the Celestial Land.
In one of the letters of Sakuma-Sho-
zan, a noted Unionist leader, he says,\
" It is wonderful that among the bar- 1
barians should be preserved the laws
of the ancient sages!" Untutored as
yet in the darker side of Western poli-
tics, they fell into ecstasies over those
achievements of modern nations which
seemed to them an actualization of their
ideals. In George Washington they\
saw the Emperor Yaou of China re- ]
linquishing his throne to the ablest citi- /
y
zen of the realm. Wonder is the
mother of knowledge. Treatises on
international law were read with the
same respect which was rendered to the
codes of the Chow d5masty. Montes-
quieu, with his triune theory of gov-
ernment, was hailed as the Book of
Mencius. Far from despising the
149
THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN
West, the Unionists laid themselves at
its feet. It was not the novelty but the
similarity of what they found that at-
tracted them. Sakuma-Shozan first
proposed to the authorities the employ-
ment of European instructors in all
branches of study. He was also the
first Japanese who adopted European
costume.
We may mention, in passing, that this
idiosyncrasy of dress was actuated by
a love of symbolism. It was the ex-
pression of a desire on the part of the
progressionist to cast off the shackles
of the decadent East and identify
himself with the advance of Western
civilization. Our kimono meant lei-
sure, while the European dress meant
activity and became the uniform of the
army of progress, like the chapeau
rouge in revolutionary France. Now-
150
THE TRANSITION
adays a reaction has set in, and native
costume is more generally worn by the
progressives. Few of our ladies affect
European costume except at court.
Sakuma-Shozan paid dearly for his
pro-foreign leanings: in 1866 he was
assassinated at Kioto by the ronins of
the imperial party. Yet despite con-
servative antagonism, Western know-
ledge became more and more sought
after as time advanced, until it has now
become an inherent part of our na-
tional culture. It must always be re-
membered, however, that the original
movement toward the acquirement of
foreign knowledge was fostered by the
historic spirit. If there had been no ;!^-^^,
common point of contact, an Oriental' / -
race like ours would never have adopted
Occidental ideas with the enthusiasm
that we did.
161
THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN
Of the three parties above mentioned,
the Federals were at first in the ascen-
dant. In 1862 two imperial embassies,
escorted by the lords of Satsuma
and Tosa, left Kioto for Yedo, carry-
ing orders to the Shogun to give the
higher positions under his adminis-
tration to certain powerful daimios,
and furthermore commanding him to
pay personal homage to the throne, a
ceremony neglected since the days of
the fourth Shogun. The Tokugawas
had now no power to refuse, and as the
result of these commands Prince Keiki
was made chief adviser of the Shogun,
the lord of Nabeshima his tutor, the
lord of Echizen prime minister of the
cabinet, and the lord of Awa di-
rector of military affairs. The first ac-
tion of the new cabinet was to abol-
ish the custom by which the daimios
152
THE TRANSITION
were obliged to leave hostages at
Yedo and they themselves periodically
to pay homage to the Shogun, both
of which usages formed so impor-
tant a part of the Tokugawa system.
Another of their reforms was the re-
placement of the Tokugawa garrison
at Kioto by one under the command of
a Federal daimio. Their choice for
this position fell on the lord of Aidzu,
who later stood forth as the champion
of the Federal policy after most of the
other daimios had joined the Union-
ists.
Beyond carrying through these re-
forms, the Federal party accomplished
but little. The program of instituting
radical changes while preserving the
Tokugawa rule soon placed the Federal-
ists in a dilemma, while petty jealousies
and dissensions began to spring up in
153
THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN
their ranks. The lord of Satsuma, who
alone might have controlled the dai-
mios, had to return to his territory on
account of complications with the Eng-
lish. By the spring of 1863 we find
the Federals thoroughly disunited, all
of the daimios who had taken office
the previous year having resigned ex-
cept Prince Keiki and the lord of
Aidzu.
Meanwhile the Imperialists were be-
coming anxious over the turn of events.
To them the daimios seemed to be
lacking in loyalty to the Mikado. They
even suspected Satsuma of trying to
supplant the Tokugawas. The Federal
attitude of complacency toward the
foreigners was repugnant to them as
showing a disregard of the imperial
wishes. The disintegration of the Fed-
eral party now offered an opportunity
154
THE TRANSITION
for the Imperialists to take the helm
of state. Jn April, 1863, they obtained
imperial authority to close the ports and
expel the foreigners, a measure which
the Tokugawas refused to sanction and
which the daimios would not take
seriously. The Imperialists, however,
were not daunted by this rebuff, and
the lord of Choshiu showed his con-
tempt of Tokugawa authority by firing
at the foreign vessels which passed the
shores of his territory in their passage
through the Strait of Bakan.
This rash act raised the opposition
of the Federal party and caused its re-
consolidation. Seven of the younger
kuges were accused of surreptitiously
obtaining the imperial sanction to this
anti-foreign demonstration and were
obliged to flee for their lives, while the
samurai and ronins of the Choshiu clan
165
THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN
were forbidden the city of Kioto.
They attempted to take the Federal
guards of the palace gates by surprise
in order to make appeal directly to the
Mikado, but were repulsed with great
loss. Attempted uprisings in three
different parts of the country met with
failure, and the whole body of Imperial-
ists had to seek refuge in Choshiu. A
joint army led by the lords of Owari
and Echizen soon surrounded the fu-
gitives and compelled the lord of
Choshiu to execute three of his chief
officers as an atonement for his misde-
meanor, while he was obhged to retire
into a monastery to await further or-
ders. Owari and Echizen were not de-
sirous of inflicting further punishment,
and the invading armies were soon
withdrawn. The lord of Aidzu was
dissatisfied with this comparatively
156
THE TRANSITION
light form of chastisement, and pre-
vailed upon the Shogun to lead in per-
son a second invasion of Choshiu.
It was now that the Unionist party
was formed. In their opinion, it was
suicidal for the nation to be involved in
internal disputes when foreign inter-
ference might be expected at any time.
A second invasion of Choshiu, if suc-
cessful, would reinstate the Tokuga-
was in power, something which neither
the Federals nor the Imperialists were
desirous of bringing about. The initia-
tive came from the lord of Tosa, who
succeeded in reconciling the leaders of
the rival clans of Satsuma and Cho-
shiu. A triple alliance was secretly
formed by these three daimios.
The Tokugawa army started from
Yedo for the second invasion of Cho-
shiu without the support of the Fed-
167
THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN
eral daimios, most of whom, with the
exception of Aidzu, had already fallen
under the influence of the Unionists
and lent only their nominal assistance
to the expedition. The golden fan of
lyeyasu, hereditary insignia of the To-
kugawas, which had carried all before
it in the bloody battles of the sixteenth
century, was at last to meet with defeat.
Outgeneraled at every point, the To-
kugawa army was unable to stand
against the determined soldiers of
Choshiu and had to beat an ignominious
retreat. To add to the troubles of the
Tokugawas, the Shogun died in the
winter of 1866, shortly before the pass-
ing away of Komei Tenno, the imperial
father of our reigning Majesty. This
event gave an excuse to the Tokugawas
for concluding a truce, which, however,
virtually yielded the victory to the
158
THE TRANSITION
lord of Choshiu. The seven court
nobles who had sought refuge in
Choshiu were allowed to return and
were reinstated in their former rank.
It was about this time that Marquis
Ito and other students who had been
in Western countries returned from
abroad and were welcomed by the
Unionist leaders on account of the
knowledge they had thus acquired.
The party was now well equipped with
ideas of constructive progress and con-
stitutional government.
Prince Keiki, formerly a candidate
for the shogunate and later adviser of
the Shogun, was himself called upon to
become the last of the shoguns, but the
time had long passed when he might
have had an opportunity of proving his
ability. True to the principles incul-
cated by his father, the prince of Mito,
159
THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN
his supreme devotion was to the Mi-
kado, and he was convinced of the fu-
tility of trying longer to maintain the
struggling fortunes of his own house.
It needed no persuasion to induce him
to give up his title and to restore entire
authority to the throne. He was, in
fact, unconsciously a thorough Union-
ist at heart. His most trusted coun-
selor, the late Count Katsu-Awa, was
one of the Unionist leaders, though the
rest of his vassals and daimios were,
like the lord of Aidzu, Federals of the
most pronounced type. It is said that
when, in the fall of 1867, the envoys of
the lord of Tosa came to urge his res-
ignation, he bade them wait and at once
drew up the memorable document in
which he relinquished all the powers
which had been intrusted to his family
for nearly three hundred years.
160
THE TRANSITION
The lord of Aidzu and some of the
Tokugawa samurai objected to this
sudden surrender of the shogunate
and raised revolts in Osaka and the
northern provinces. But, bereft of
their leader, the Shogun, they were
unable to make effective resistance to
the Unionist army under the joint
command of the great Saigo of Sat-
suma and Omura of Choshiu. In the
following year, after some desperate
battles, they were all reduced to submis-
sion. Japan once more bowed to the
military authority of the Mikado. The
Restoration was complete.
11
161
VIII
RESTORATION AND REFORMATION
T
HE Restoration was at the same time
a reformation. In emerging from
an Asiatic hermitage to take our stand
upon the broad stage of the world, we
were obliged to assimilate much that the
Occident offered for our advancement
and at the same time to resuscitate the
classic ideals of the East. The idea of
the reformation is clearly expressed in
the imperial declaration of 1868 in
which his present Majesty, after as-
cending the throne, stated that national
»^ obligations should be regarded from the
broad standpoint of universal humanity.
As the word signifies, our restoration
162
■f. :
RESTORATION— REFORMATION
was essentially a return. The govern-
ment once again assumed the form of an
imperial bureaucracy, such as had ex-
isted before the rise of feudalism over
seven hundred years ago. The first act
of the new government was to reestab-
lish all the ancient offices, together with
their former nomenclature, while many
long forgotten functions and ceremonies^ ,
were revived and Shintoism was pro-i^*-^^
claimed as the religion of the imperial
household. Posthumous honors were
conferred on loyalists who, like Masa-
shige, had served the cause of the court
during the former shogunates, and the
descendants of many of them were
ennobled.
Yet these revivals of past conditions
were tempered with the new spirit of
freedom and equality. The Mikado,
while pronouncing Shintoism to be the
163
THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN
religion of the household, granted lib-
erty of conscience to the entire nation,
and Christianity was freed from the in-
terdiction under which it had lain since
the Jesuit insurrection of the seven-
teenth century. The class distinction
between nobles, samurai, and common-
ers was nominally retained, and the dai-
mios and kuges were given titular rank
according to the five grades of the old
Chinese system. A new aristocracy
even was created. All class privileges,
however, were abolished, and all, from
the princes and the marquises down to
the abhorred yettas (who to-day bear
the nickname of the " New Common-
ers ") , were made equal in the eye of the
law, while examinations for the civil
service were thrown open to every one.
The object of those who conducted the
reformation was so to fuse together the
164
RESTORATION—REFORMATION
hardened strata of Tokugawa social
life that the entire nation might parti-
cipate in the glory and responsibilities of
the Restoration. There were four main
lines along which the work of preparing
the nation to meet the problem of mod-
ern life was carried. These were, first, /
constitutional government ; second, lib- 1
eral education ; third, universal military \
service; and fourth, the elevation of^
womanhood.
Constitutional government has been
deemed impracticable for Eastern na-
tions, and in Turkey it was a sad failure.
With us, however, since the assembling
of our first parliament the principles
and ordinances of the state have been so
well carried out that we can safely affirm
the experimental age to have been
passed and constitutional government to
have become an inherent part of our po-
165
THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN
litical consciousness. We may have had
occasional stormy debates and divisions,
a phase of affairs not miknown in the
conduct of Western national assembHes ;
but whenever threatened with foreign
complications, aU factions have invari-
ably united in support of the cabinet.
The successful working of the new sys-
tem is partly due, no doubt, to an
inherent power of self-government ex-
empHfied in the administration of many
of our previous institutions, and partly
to the fact that the nation had long been
preparing for the responsibiUty of self-
government.
In 1867, as soon as the Shogun had
resigned his office, the Unionist ministry
created two councils, one composed of
the leading daimios and kuges, the
other of representative samurai from
various daimiates. When his JMajesty
166
RESTORATION— REFORMATION
the present Emperor ascended the
throne in 1868 and proclaimed the Res-
toration, he declared the establishment of
a national assembly in which important
affairs of state should be decided by
pubHc opinion. In 1875 a senate was
created, to which all contemplated legis-
lation had to be submitted by the cabi-
net, and this was soon followed by the
establishment of the Court of Final
Appeal. Thus were inaugurated the
three principal factors in the conduct of
a constitutional government, namely,
the executive, legislative, and judicial
bodies. In 1879 the senate passed a law
creating in each local prefecture an as-
sembly in which representatives elected
by the taxpayers were to decide the
annual expenditures and taxation of the
province. In 1881 an imperial procla-
mation announced that the Constitution
167
THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN
would go into effect in 1890, and ac-
cordingly in February of that year it
was duly promulgated. Our diet con-
sists of the House of Commons and
House of Peers, the latter an outgrowth
of the senate established in 1875. It is
significant that our Constitution was
the voluntary gift of the Mikado, and
not, as in the case of some European na-
tions, one forced from the sovereign by
the people. Consistent with Eastern
traditions, our democracy is an accre-
tion, not an eruption.
The question of education for the
people held a prominent place in the
imperial declaration of 1868, the Mi-
kado commanding the acquisition of
knowledge from all sources throughout
the world. We have already mentioned
the existence in Tokugawa days of ele-
mentary schools for the commoners and
168
RESTORATION— REFORMATION
academies of learning for the higher
classes. These were now systematically
organized so that they might furnish the
nation with the knowledge necessary for
carrying out the obUgations of its new
environment. Elementary education
was made compulsory for all boys and
girls above six years of age, and normal
schools were established in each of the
provinces to supply them with teachers.
In our educational system of to-day,
next above the elementary schools come
the middle schools, in which a liberal edu-
cation is given and pupils are prepared
for entering the higher institutions of
learning. There are also special schools
for those desirous of entering the navy
or army, agriculture, industrial science,
commerce, or the arts and crafts, while
the imperial university includes colleges
of law, literature, medicine, engineer-
169
THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN
ing, and science. Female education is
not neglected, though, in accordance
with Eastern custom, it is given sepa-
rately. A few years ago a ladies' uni-
versity was started in Tokio. The study
of one of the European languages is
compulsory in all except the elementary
schools— that of English being the one
generally required. A great number of
Americans and Europeans are em-
ployed to give instruction, and thou-
sands of young men and women study
abroad either at their own or the govern-
ment's expense. Our eagerness to
acquire Western learning has prompted
hosts of our young men to seek menial
work in foreign countries, — service, ac-
cording to Confucian notions, not being
considered derogatory. The ethical
training given to the rising generation
is based on the teachings of earlier days.
170
RESTORATION— REFORMATION
The imperial manifesto which formu-
lated the national code of morality,
after summing up the universal princi-
ples of ethics, concludes with these
words : " These are the teachings of our
imperial ancestors, and this is the path
followed by your ancestors." It is
hardly necessary to add that the fruits
of our newly acquired knowledge are
all consecrated in intense devotion to the
Mikado.
Our system of military service has
proved more potent than any other fac-
tor in strengthening national loyalism.
It has, in fact, transformed the com-
moner into a samurai. Conscription
had obtained in Japan long before the
rise of feudalism, and its practice was
merely revived in 1870 on German and
French lines. According to the present .
system, every male at twenty years of
171
THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN
age is liable to be drafted for three years'
service with the colors, and after that
for a service of five years each in the first
and second reserves. In case of extreme
emergency the whole nation may be
called to armS. The officers, trained in
special schools and staff* colleges, come
mostly from samurai families, and their
traditional code of life has permeated
the entire new army. For the nation at
large the social distinction of many cen-
turies has thrown a halo about the
sworded class, while current fiction and
drama have for the last fifty years so
idealized the patriotic soldier that the
peasant conscript on entering the ranks
feels himself ennobled not only in his
own estimation but in that of his breth-
ren; he is now a man of the sword, the
soul of honor. He is fairly intelligent,
thanks to the village school, soon mas-
172
RESTORATION— REFORMATION
tering his tactics and imbibing that pro-
found sense of duty which is the essence
of samuraihood. At first, on account of
his heretofore peaceful life, there were
some misgivings about his courage; but
the baptism of fire proved him able to
take his place beside the best of the sam-
urai. The contempt of death displayed
by our conscripts is not founded, as some
Western writers suppose, on the hope of
a future reward. We preach no Val-
halla or Moslem heaven awaiting our
departed heroes; for the teachings of
Buddhism promise in the next life but
a miserable incarnation to the slayer of
man. It is a sense of duty alone that
causes our men to march to certain death
at the word of command. Behind all
lies devotion to the sovereign and love
of country. Our conscript but follows
the historic example of those heroes who
173
THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN
ever gave themselves as willing sacri-
fices for the good of the nation. If he
sometimes offers his blood too freely, it
is through an exuberance of patriotic
love; for love, like death, recognizes no
limits.
Another important feature of the
reformation lay in the exaltation of
womanhood. The Western attitude of •
profound respect toward the gentler sex
exhibits a beautiful phase of refinement
which we are anxious to emulate. It is
one of the noblest messages that Chris-
tianity has given us. Christianity origi-
nated in the East, and, except as regards
womanhood, its modes of thought are
not new to Eastern minds. As the new
religion spread westward through Eu-
rope, it naturally became influenced by
the idiosyncrasies of the various con-
verted nations, so that the poetry of the
174
RESTORATION— REFORMATION
German forest, the adoration of the
Virgin in the middle centuries, the age
of chivalry, the songs of the trouba-
dours, the delicacy of the Latin nature,
and, above all, the clean manhood of the
Anglo-Saxon race, probably all con-
tributed their share toward the ideaUza-
tion of woman.
In Japan, woman has always com-
manded a respect and freedom not to be
found elsewhere in the East. We have
never had a Salic law, and it is from a
female divinity, the Sun-goddess, that
our Mikado traces his lineage. During
many of the most brilliant epochs in our
ancient history we were under the rule
of a female sovereign. Our Empress
Zingo personally led a victorious army
into Korea, and it was Empress Suiko
who inaugurated the refined culture of
the Nara period. Female sovereigns
175
THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN
ascended the throne in their own right
even when there were male candidates,
for we considered woman in all respects
as the equal of man. In our classic lit-
erature we find the names of more great
authoresses than authors, while in feudal
days some of our amazons charged with
the bravest of the Kamakura knights.
As time advanced and Confucian theo-
ries became more potent in molding our
social customs, woman was relegated
from public life and confined to what
was considered by the Chinese sage as
her proper sphere, the household. Our
inherent respect for the rights of wo-
manhood, however, remained the same,
and as late as the year 1630 a female
mikado, Meisho-Tenno, ascended the
throne of her fathers. Until after the
Restoration, a knowledge of such mar-
tial exercises as fencing and jiujitsuwas
176
RESTORATION— REFORMATION
considered part of the education of a
samurai's daughter, and is, indeed, still
so considered among many old families.
Among the commoners the various in-
dustries and trades have always been
open to women as they are to-day, while
we have already seen how, in spite of her
apparent seclusion, the Tokugawa lady
impressed her individuality on the state.
Buddhism has its worship for the eternal
feminine and Confucianism has always
inculcated a reverence for womanhood,
teaching that the wife should always be
treated with the respect due to a guest
or friend.
We have never hitherto, however,
learned to oiFer any special privileges to
woman. Love has never occupied an
important place in Chinese literature;
and in the tales of Japanese chivalry, the
samurai, although ever at the service of
177
12
THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN
the weak and oppressed, gave his help
quite irrespective of sex. To-day we
are convinced that the elevation of wo-
man is the elevation of the race. She is
the epitome of the past and the reser-
voir of the future, so that the responsi-
bilities of the new social life which is
dawning on the ancient realms of the
Sun-goddess may be safely intrusted
to her care. Since the Restoration we
have not only confirmed the equality of
sex in law, but have adopted that atti-
tude of respect which the West pays to
woman. She now possesses all the
rights of her Western sister, though she
does not care to insist upon them ; for al-
most all of our women still consider the
home, and not society, as their proper
sphere.
Time alone can decide the future of
the Japanese lady, for the question of
178
RESTORATION— REFORMATION
womanhood is one involving the whole
social life and its web of convention. In
the East woman has always been wor-
shiped as the mother, and all those hon-
ors which the Christian knight brought
in homage to his lady-love, the samurai
laid at his mother's feet. It is not that
the wife is less adored, but that mater-
nity is hoUer. Again, our woman loves
to serve her husband; for service is the
noblest expression of affection, and love
rejoices more in giving than in receiv-
ing. In the harmony of Eastern society
the man consecrates himself to the state,
the child to the parent, and the wife to
the husband.
After the successful accomplishment
of the Restoration, there stiU remained
for nearly thirty years one bitter drop
in our cup of happiness. That was the
question of treaty revision. We had es-
179
THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN
tablished a constitutional government
and a complete educational system; we
had reorganized our army and navy and
joined the Geneva Convention; we had
remodeled our civil law code and devel-
oped extensive commercial relations
with the rest of the world, yet the for-
eign powers persistently refused to re-
vise the obsolete treaties signed under
the Tokugawa shogunate. We did not
complain of the low rate of our customs-
duties, though with our growing com-
merce this meant a heavy loss to us,
but of the jurisdiction exercised by ex-
territorial courts. Japan was restored,
but not entirely freed. There were
spots in the Mikado's realm which his
sovereignty could not reach. The West-
erner, who has never known the pres-
ence of a foreign consular court in
his own country, cannot be expected to
180
RESTORATION— REFORMATION
realize the anguish that they cause
to those upon whom they are imposed.
It is not that the decisions of these
courts are unfair, but misunderstand-
ings are always arising through the
existence of race distinctions, while the
fact that foreign laws should be ad-
ministered at all is in itself a condem-
nation of the law and justice of the
country, and is necessarily a humiliation
to any self-respecting nation. Since the
beginning of the Restoration the efforts
of our government have been constantly
directed toward the abolishment of this
system, but every proposal of ours was
either met by the foreign powers with a
peremptory refusal or elicited some ex-
orbitant demand in exchange. The
United States of America, it is true,
agreed to a revision if all the other pow-
ers would join, but this was something
181
THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN
which Europe was sure not to do. It
was a hard task for us to convince the
West that an Eastern nation could suc-
cessfully assume the responsibilities of
an enhghtened people. It was not until
our war with China in 1894-95 had
revealed our military strength as well as
our capacity to maintain a high stand-
ard of international morahty, that Eu-
rope consented to put an end to her
ex-territorial jurisdiction in Japan. It
is one of the painful lessons of history
that civilization, in its progress, often
climbs over the bodies of the slain.
Great are the struggles that we have
had to undergo during these last few
decades. In the turmoil of the reforma-
tion the swing of the pendulum was
often extreme, causing the passage of
many unnecessary if not actually harm-
ful measures. We have often stood be-
182
RESTORATION— REFORMATION
wildered in the mid-stream of conflicting
opinions, watching with dismay the
shifting sand-banks of the half-reaHzed
constantly changing with the currents
of subconscious thought. All the ri-
diculousness of paradox, all the cruelty
of dilemma, were ours. We might have
laughed had we not wept. Conservative
reactions caused riots and local rebel-
lions in which we lost many of the great-
est pioneers of our reformation, and
radical zealots often cut short with their
swords the career of some far-sighted
leader. We must be ever thankful that
the helm was held throughout by hands
strong enough to keep the ship of state
steadily on its course, in spite of storms
and contrary currents.
183
IX
THE REINCARNATION
PESSIMISTS declare that the Old Ja-
pan is no more. They hold that
in her modernization she has lost her
individuality and broken the thread of
her historic unity. Eminent European
writers have regarded the present con-
dition of affairs in Japan as transient
and impermanent, a strange freak of
orientalism sooner or later doomed to
disintegration. They image our muta-
bility in the straw sandals which we
change at every stage of a journey;
our disregard of all permanence in the
wooden houses that are daily swept away
by conflagrations. To them everything
184
THE REINCARNATION
Japanese lacks solidity and stability,
from the constantly vibrating land in
which we dwell to the philosophy of
Buddhism teaching the evanescence of
all things.
It is true that the imperative needs of
our sudden transformation from the old
to the new life have swept away many
landmarks of Old Japan ; yet in spite of
changes, we have still been able to re-
main true to our former ideals; though
our sandals be changed, our journey
continues; though our houses be burnt,
our cities remain ; and the earthquake but
shows the virility of the mighty fish that
upholds our island empire/
It should be remembered that in
Eastern philosophy the poetry of things
is more real and vital than mere facts
^ Japanese folk-lore teaches that earthquakes are caused
by the movements of a huge fish which bears the islands
of Japan upon its back.
186
THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN
and events. Buddhism, which taught
the transitory nature of the mun-
dane, never for a moment ceased to
teach the immutabihty of the soul.
Since the earUest dawn of history our
national patriotism and devotion to the
Mikado show a consistent tenacity of an-
cient ideals, while the fact that we have
preserved the arts and customs of an-
cient China and India long after they
have become lost in the lands of their
birth is sufficient testimony to our rever-
ence for traditions. Our conservatism
is well typified by the Shinto temple of
Ise, where the Sun-goddess, founder of
our imperial line, is forever worshiped.
That holiest shrine of our ancestrism
remains to-day as perfect in its pristine
beauty as it was twenty centuries ago,
being rebuilt every twenty years on an
alternate site in its exact original form.
186
THE REINCARNATION
The world may, perhaps, laugh at our
love of monotony, but can never accuse
us of a lack of constancy. Our indi-
viduality has been preserved from sub-
mersion beneath the mighty tide of
Western ideas by the same national
characteristics which ever enabled us to
remain true to ourselves in spite of re-
peated influxes of foreign thought.
From time immemorial the civilizations
of China and India have silted over
Korea and the adjacent coasts of Japan.
The Tang dynasty flooded us with its
pantheism and harmonism, while under
the Sung dynasty new elements of ro-
manticism and individualism were car-
ried to our shores. From the dualistic
theories of the Hinayana* to the ultra-
monistic doctrines of Bodhidharma,^ In-
^ Southern school of Buddhism, or Lesser Vehicle.
2 An Indian monk who came to China in the sixth cen-
tury and started the early form of Zen.
187
THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN
dia has dowered us with a wealth of
religion and philosophy. Different and
conflicting as were these various schools
of thought, Japan has welcomed them
all and assimilated whatever ministered
to her mental needs, incorporating the
gift as an integral part of her thought-
inheritance. The hearth of our ancient
ideals was ever guarded by a careful
eclecticism, while the broad fields of
our national life, enriched by the fer-
tile deposits of each successive inun-
dation, burst forth into fresher verdure.
The expenditure of thought involved
synthesizing the different elements
f Asiatic culture has given to Japa-
nese philosophy and art a freedom and
virility unknown to India and China.
It is thus due to past training that
we are able to comprehend and appre-
ciate more easily than our neighbors
188
THE REINCARNATION
those elements of Western civilization
which it is desirable that we should ac-
quire. Accustomed to accept the new
without sacrificing the old, our adoption
of Western methods has not so greatly
affected the national life as is generally
supposed. The same eclecticism which ''^^»^
had chosen Buddha as the spiritual and
Confucius as the moral guide, hailed ^-^X
modern science as the beacon of material
progress. Our efforts to master certain
phases of Western development have re-
sulted in an increase of industrial activ-
ity and the introduction of scientific
sanitation and surgery, while our meth-
ods of communication and transporta-
tion have been greatly improved and the
ordinary comforts of life are much more
universally enjoyed than ever before.
Development along such lines, however,
has but little effect on our national char-
189
THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN
acter beyond acting as a stimulus for
further efforts.
Again, the adoption of Western po-
litical and social customs has not neces-
sitated so great a change on our part as
might at first seem apparent. Our past
experience taught us to choose in West-
ern institutions only what was consistent
with our Eastern nature. It must be
remembered that in spite of the seeming
demarcation of the East and the West,
all human development is fundamen-
tally the same, and that in the vast range
of Asiatic history there can be found al-
most every variety of social usage. We
have already alluded to that ancient
Confucian state which suggested de-
mocracy to the Unionists. The five
grades of nobihty from duke to baron
were known in the Chow dynasty three
thousand years ago. Slavery was abol-
190
THE REINCARNATION
ished by the Hang dynasty during the ^^''^'^
first century of the Christian era. So-s
cialistic theories concerning the equal
distribution of property and govern-
ment management of agricultural prod-
ucts, were carried into actual practice
during the Hang and Sung dynasties.
Modern German idealism was antici-
pated in India many ages ago, while
Christianity has many parallelisms inj
Buddhism. The modern European ten-
dency toward the demarcation of the
church from the state, as well as the civil-
service examination system, has existed
in China since early days. It was on ac-
count of these and many other points of
resemblance between Western and Asi-
atic civilizations that Japan was able to
borrow much from Europe and America
without violating her sense of tradition.
One who looks beneath the surface of
191
THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN
things can see, in spite of her modern
garb, that the heart of Old Japan is still
beating strongly. Our Civil Code,
which embodies the spirit of Western
law, incorporates to a great extent the
customs and usages of our past. Our
Constitution, though it may seem simi-
lar to many Western constitutions, is
foimded on our ancient system of gov-
ernment, and even finds its prototype in
the days of the gods. The Japanese Re-
naissance, which began in the eighteenth
century, has never stayed its course.
Armed with more systematic methods,
our scholars still pursue their research
into ancient art and literature. The
Historical Bureau of Tokio University
has already collected an immense quan-
tity of material for the reconstruction of
our annals. The Imperial Archseologi-
cal Commission has, in the last fif-
192
THE REINCARNATION
teen years, ransacked the monasteries
throughout the whole extent of the em-
pire, and confuted many of the tradi-
tions of the Tokugawa critics. Rare
Chinese books are eagerly sought after,
an extremely valuable collection being
recently acquired from the imperial ar-
chives of Peking. An interest in San-
skrit literature has also arisen, and the
Max Miiller library has been recently
purchased and brought to Tokio, while
Buddhism and Confucianism are studied
with even greater zest than they were at
the outset of the Restoration. Old cus-
toms and ceremonies are being revived,
and a knowledge of our ancient etiquette
forms as much a part of a gentleman's
training as ever it did, the tendency of
democracy being only to make it more
universal than before. The tea-cere-
mony and flower-arrangement have
^ 193
THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN
again become common features in the
life of our ladies. Classic music and
drama are widely studied even by people
of European education. It may not,
perhaps, be generally known that the
ancient ceremonial functions of the
court are kept up to-day without any
alteration in form. As a notable in-
stance of this, we may call attention to
the fact that the declaration of war with
Russia was announced to the Sun-god-
dess by a distinguished envoy from the
Mikado, and a special guard was de-
tailed for service at the shrine in Ise
during the continuance of hostilities.
As Hakuraku discerned the real
horse, so may he who perceives the real
spirit of things see in current events
the reincarnation of Old Japan. In the
thoroughness and minutiae of our prepa-
rations for war, he wiU recognize the
194
THE REINCARNATION
same hands whose untiring patience
gave its exquisite finish to our lacquer.
In the tender care bestowed upon our
stricken adversary of the battle-field
will be found the ancient courtesy of the
samurai, who knew "the sadness of
things" and looked to his enemy's
wound before his own. The ardor that
leads our sailors into daring enterprises
is inspired by the Neo-Confucian doc- 5
trine which teaches that to know is to ;
do. The calmness with which our peo- *
pie have met the exigencies of a national
crisis is a heritage from those disciples of
Buddha who in the silence of the mon-
astery meditated on change.
All that is vital and representative in
our contemporary art and literature is
the revivified expression of the national
school, not imitation of European mod-
els. The brilliant creations of our lead-
195
THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN
ing novelists, Koda-Rohan and the late
Ozaki-Koyo, are based on a revival of
the style of the seventeenth century.
The name of the lamented Danjuro, one
of the greatest actors that the world has
ever seen, is inseparably connected vi^ith
our historical drama. The well-known
ceramists, Takemoto-Hayata, Makuzu-
Kozan, and Seifu-Yohei, may be consid-
ered as wonderful as the old Chinese
masters whose secrets they have discov-
ered. Natsuo, Zesshin, Hogai, and
Gaho illustriously prove that the spirit
of our ancient art still lives. We do not
mean to say that the study of European
art and literature is in any way injurious
or even undesirable, but that so far its
results can in no way compare with the
achievements of the native school.
It is a matter of no small wonder that
our national art should have survived
196
THE REINCARNATION
amid the adverse surroundings in which
it found itself. The phiHstine nature of/
industrialism and the restlessness of ma- 1
terial progress are inimical to Eastern^
art. The machinery of competition im-
poses the monotony of fashion instead
of the variety of life. The cheap is wor-
shiped in place of the beautiful, while
the rush and struggle of modern exis-
tence give no opportunity for the leisure
required for the crystallization of ideals.
Patronage is no longer even the sign of
individual bad taste. Music is criticized
through the eye, a picture through the
ear.
The possibihty that Japanese art may
become a thing of the past is a matter of
sympathetic concern to the esthetic com-
munity of the West. It should be
known that our art is suffering not
merely from the purely utilitarian trend
197
THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN
of modern life, but also from an inroad
of Western ideas. The demand of the
Western market for dubious art goods,
together with the constant criticism of
our standard of taste, has told upon our
individuahty. Our difficulty lies in the
fact that Japanese art stands alone in
the world, without immediate possibility
of any accession or reinforcement from
kindred ideals or technique. We no lon-
ger have the benefit of a living art in
China to excite our rivalry and urge us
on to fresh endeavors. On the other
hand, the unfortunately contemptuous
attitude which the average Westerner
assumes toward everything connected
with Oriental civilization tends to de-
stroy our self-confidence in regard to
our canons of art. Those European and
American connoisseurs who appreciate
our efforts may not realize that the
198
THE REINCARNATION
West, as a whole, is constantly preach-
ing the superiority of its own culture
and art to those of the East. Japan
stands alone against all the world. It
is but natural that the weak-spirited
among us follow the trend of world-
opinion and desert the ranks of con-
servative upholders of our national
school. The delight of some of our
gilded youths in the latest cut of a Lon-
don tailor or the last novelty from Paris
is one of the pathetic indications of an
attempted protective coloring against
the universal condemnation of Eastern
customs.
Japanese art has done wonders in re-
maining true to itself in spite of the odds
it has had to face. We trust and hope
that the tenacious vitality which it has
evinced, in spite of the overwhelming
occidentalism of the last four decades,
199
THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN
will keep Japanese art intact in the fu-
ture. Every accession to our national
self-confidence is a strong incentive to
the preservation of national ideals. A
great reaction toward native customs
and art has been manifested since our
victory over China ten years ago. We
hope that our success over a stronger ad-
versary than China will give us a still
deeper self-confidence. We shall be
ready more than ever to learn and as-
similate what the West has to offer, but
we must remember that our claim to re-
spect lies in remaining faithful to our
own ideals.
200
X
JAPAN AND PEACE
WE have been repeatedly accused of
belligerent designs and expan-
sive ambitions. Perhaps to European
nations, with their traditions of con-
quest and colonization, it may be incon-
ceivable that we are not animated by
the same spirit of aggrandizement that
has often led them into war. But to
any one who cares to study the history
of our foreign policy nothing can be
clearer than the constancy of our de-
sire for the maintenance of peace, our
final recourse to war being forced upon
us by the necessity of safeguarding
our national existence. The very na-
201
THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN
ture of our civilization, in fact, pro-
hibits aggression against foreign na-
tions. Confucianism, which is an epit-
^^'^^'lome of the agricultural civilization of
China, is essentially self-contained and
non-aggressive in its nature. The fer-
tility of the vast plains wherein the
teachings of Confucius were followed
rendered any overstepping of their
^natural boundaries unnecessary. The
message of the sage made love of the
soil and consecration of labor, go hand
in hand. He and his followers taught
( the homely and the patriarchal virtues
) of meekness and harmony. Later came
Buddhism to reinforce the root-idea of
contentment and self-restraint. Not
' once during the whole of their hoary
history do we find the native dynasties
1 of China and India ever coming into
\ collision with each other. The only oc-
202
JAPAN AND PEACE
casion on which China ever menaced Ja-
pan was when in the twelfth century her
own Mongol conquerors tried to impose
their authority upon us.
Japan, though originally a maritime )|y^J^
nation, had through the influence of!
Confucianism and Buddhism long ago
become, like her neighbors, self-con-
tained, seeking the fulfilment of her des-
tinies within the narrow limits of her
island empire. The fact that in the J
eighth century we had given up our an-
cient dominion over Korea, proves how \
deeply the continental idea had become a '
part of our national consciousness. The
Korean peninsula had probably origi-
nally been colonized by us during pre-
historic ages. Archaeological remains in
Korea are of exactly the same type as
those found in our primitive dolmens.
The Korean language remains, even to-
203
THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN
day, the nearest allied to ours of all the
Asiatic tongues. Our earliest traditions
tell of the god Sosano, brother of our
imperial ancestress, settling in Korea;
and Dankun, first king of that country,
is considered by some historians to have
been his son. The third century dis-
closes our Empress Zhingo leading an
invasion of the peninsula in order to re-
establish our sovereignty, threatened by
the rise of a number of small indepen-
^ /dent kingdoms. Our annals are filled
'-^ until the eighth century with accounts of
\our protection over colonies. From this
time onward, however, a great change
comes over Japan, and all our energy
is expended in religious fervor. This
age, which witnessed the erection of in-
numerable monasteries and the casting
of the colossal Buddha of Nara, saw the
last of our Korean colonies allowed to
204
JAPAN AND PEACE
perish, her appeals for help unheeded by
the mother-country.
The attempted Mongol invasion of
the thirteenth century kindled in us a
feeling of animosity toward the Koreans
who led the Chinese vanguard. Our
only act of retaliation, however, con-
sisted in the unique expedition of the
Taiko Hideyoshi, who, in the sixteenth
century, led an army into Korea to mea-
sure swords with those whom he consid-
ered as his hereditary enemies. But
national sentiment had long lost sympa-
thy with any idea of foreign conquest,
and the Taiko's army was presently re-
called at his death. The only result of
this extraordinary expedition was the
sending, during subsequent Tokugawaf / —
days, of envoys from the Korean sover-j -4
eign to pay the homage of a tributarv ^
king to each newly appointed shogun — )
205
THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN
a homage equally offered to the Chinese
emperors. This ceremony continued till
the days of the Restoration, but we
never thought of availing ourselves of
the right imphed by it to interfere in
continental politics. On the contrary,
we prided ourselves upon our complete
isolation from the rest of the world, and
did not even seek to renew those diplo-
matic amenities with China which had
ceased after the Taiko's expedition.
The Tokugawa policy of non-inter-
ference in continental affairs is well ex-
emphfied in the refusal of aid to the
celebrated Koxinga, a patriotic general
of the Ming dynasty, who drove the
Dutch out of Formosa and for three
generations held it against the Manchu
conquerors of China. The governors of
all other provinces surrendered, and he
alone upheld the remnant of Ming au-
206
JAPAN AND PEACE
thority. Half a Japanese himself,
being the son of a Ming refugee by a
Nagasaki woman, he pleaded his birth
as a reason for asking for an alliance
and reinforcements from the Japanese.
Several young daimios, together with
quite a number of samurai, fired by his
appeal, wished to volunteer, but the To-
kugawa authorities absolutely refused
to allow them to do so.
Our relations with China and Korea
since the Restoration of 1868 are strik-
ingly illustrative of our traditional pol-
icy of peace and non-aggression. When
we emerged from our sleep of three cen-
turies international conditions were
changed indeed! Events were taking
place in Asia which threatened our very
existence. No Eastern nation could
hope to maintain its independence un-
less it was able to defend itself from out-
207
THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN
side attack. Natural barriers were as
naught before the advance of science.
The Yellow Sea and the Korean straits,
which we formerly considered as invin-
cible obstacles to aggression from the
continent, amounted to little since the
introduction of fast war-ships and long-
range ordnance. Any hostile power in
occupation of the peninsula might easily
throw an army into Japan, for Korea
lies hke a dagger ever pointed toward
the very heart of Japan. Moreover, the
independence of Korea and Manchuria
is economically necessary to the preser-
vation of our race, for starvation awaits
our ever-increasing population if it be
deprived of its legitimate outlet in the
sparsely cultivated areas of these coun-
tries. To-day the Muscovites have laid
their hands on these territories, with none
but us to offer any resistance. Under
208
JAPAN AND PEACE
these circumstances, we are compelled to
regard our ancient domain of Korea as
lying within our hnes of legitimate na-
tional defense. It was when the inde-
pendence of the peninsula was threat-
ened by China in 1894 that we were
compelled to go to war with the latter
country. It was for this same indepen-
dence that we fought Russia in 1904.
There were several occasions when we
might have taken possession of Korea,
but we forbore, in the face of strong
provocation, because our wishes were f oij
peace. We must remember that the his-
toric spirit that created the Restoration
also recalled the fact that Korea was
originally a Japanese province, and in
the Tokugawa days paid tribute to the
shogunate. A casus belli was not want-
ing in the early seventies of the last
century, for Korea labored under
" 209
THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN
strange delusions, and not only refused
to recognize the government of the
Restoration, but heaped insults upon us.
Much less cause of provocation than
ours has often been taken as a ground
for aggression by European nations.
The divisions in the cabinet of 1873 and
the rebellion caused by the secession-
ists of Satsuma in 1879 were the result
of disputes between the war and peace
parties, in which the latter always came
out victorious. At that time the West
had not the keen interest in the East
that she has since acquired, and would
not have interfered with our actions.
The members of the war party urged
that the unique moment had arrived
when Japan might assume control of
Korea and lay at rest forever the danger
of her falling into the hands of some
other power. To them Korea had al-
210
JAPAN AND PEACE
ways been a tributary nation, and we
would be but confirming already exist-
ing rights. Perhaps if the Korean ques-
tion had been then settled, all the blood-
shed of the Chinese and Russian wars
might have been avoided.
The Mikado's chief advisers, together
with a majority of those who had a voice
in the government, were strongly op-
posed to the views of the war party. In
their eyes the Restoration had a higher
significance than could be found in
aggrandizement at the expense of neigh-
boring countries. To them it repre-
sented the principles of justice and hu-
manity, liberalism, and the elevation of
the Japanese race. Its very key-notes
should be nobleness and self-sacrifice,
the virtues of the samurai enlarged into
those of the nation. The lives of those
statesmen who, like Okubo-Toshimichi,
^11
THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN
Kido-Koyin, and Prince Iwakura, held
to these lofty ideals gave its moral tone
to the present Japanese government and
are eloquent of unselfishness and purity.
Their simplicity and determination are
characteristic of those enlightened spir-
its who appear to guide the people dur-
ing the critical moments of every na-
tional regeneration.
The advocates of peace prevailed, and
the war party resigned from the gov-
ernment and rose in rebellion, so that
those who remained in power were often
obHged to inlBlict the penalty of death
upon their erstwhile dearest friends.
The Mikado, always for peace, not only
forbade any expedition against Korea,
but cultivated her friendship. In 1876
a treaty of amity was signed, in which we
recognized the full sovereignty of the
Hermit Kingdom and for the first time
212
JAPAN AND PEACE
opened for her commercial relations with
the rest of the world. Thus began our
open-door policy in the far East. Our
object in renouncing our rights over a
tributary kingdom was to force China
to do likewise and thus create a neutral
zone between the two nations. If China
and Russia had respected the indepen-
dence of Korea, no wars would have
taken place.
The war with China in 1894-95 was
brought about by the ambition of China
to make herself the practical owner of
Korea, which she claimed as a tributary
state. To the ancient pride of China the
treaty of 1876 by which we recognized
the independence of Korea was a heavy
blow. She deeply resented the action of
Japan in placing that kingdom beyond
the pale of her dominion. Her con-
servative instincts revolted against our
15 213
THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN
modernization, and she sought to humi-
liate that upstart nation which was so
insignificant compared with her in point
of size. The situation resembled that
between Austria and Prussia in the last
century, before the Seven Weeks' War,
and was practically the outcome of a
family quarrel which had to be settled
once for all. The parallelism may be
still further followed in the internal
division of Austria and Hungary and
that of Manchuria and China proper,
for it should be remembered that the bel-
ligerent party was centered around the
Manchurian court at Peking and the
viceroys of Northern China, whereas the
southerners were but lukewarm, even
dehghting in the Japanese successes.
In this may be found one of the causes
for the easy defeat of China at our
hands.
214
JAPAN AND PEACE
The long-sought opportunity for seiz-
ing the control of Korea was offered to
China in the discord of the Korean gov-
ernment. Here again the antagonism
of the cabinet and the household, so
fatal to Eastern autocracy, was the real
cause of all trouble. To the enlightened
statesmen of Seoul the opening of the
country and the proposed development
of her resources were matters of great
satisfaction. The ladies of the house-
hold, however, feared the loss of their
privileges in the liberal form of govern-
ment which the cabinet was eager to es-
tablish. The household appealed to
China for support, while the progressive
cabinet sought the aid of Japan. A
diplomatic duel ensued, which, as usual,
resulted in the victory of the ladies.
Practical control over the Korean gov-
ernment was obtained by China in the
S15
THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN
year 1894, and she decided to install her-
self permanently in the peninsula by
sending thither, in spite of our protests,
a large body of troops. The history of
the war is well known. Ping-yang was
another Sadowa, and our army con-
quered the whole of southern Manchu-
ria, including Port Arthur. In 1895 a
peace was signed, by the terms of which
China fully recognized the indepen-
dence of Korea and ceded to us
Formosa, together with the territories
which we occupied at the end of the war.
By this treaty we had attained the ob-
ject of our campaign, which was the
protection of the territorial integrity of
Korea as a safeguard against any fur-
ther danger from China. With virtual
command of the Yellow Sea our anxiety
was set at rest.
It was then that the triple coalition
216
JAPAN AND PEACE
interfered with the just fruits of our
victory. In the name of peace, Russia,
upheld by Germany and France, forci-
bly demanded that we give up our newly
acquired possessions in Manchuria. This
unexpected blow was a severe one, con-
sidering the great sacrifices we had
made in the war. We were, however, in
no position to refuse the combined de-
mands of the three powers, and had only
to submit; moreover, as their interven-
tion came in the sacred name of peace,
the nation had to be content. The fact
that the Muscovite empire soon after
coolly took possession of Port Arthur,
which she had asked us to evacuate,
seemed a queer proceeding; but we of-
fered no opposition to her action, for, as
novices in European diplomacy, we still
believed in international morality and
relied on the fair words of the Russians
S17
THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN
when they declared that their intention
was to hold that place merely in the in-
terests of universal commerce. Nine
years elapsed, during which their real
designs became revealed. The greatest
shock came to us, however, when we
found that they were determined not
only to possess Manchuria, but also to
annex Korea. Protest after protest was
made on our part. Promise after prom-
ise was given by Russia, never to be ful-
filled. Meanwhile, she was pouring
huge armies into Manchuria, and her ad-
vance-guard entered Korea itself. The
throat of the dragon was touched, and
we arose. Among the crags of Liao-
tung and the billows of the Yellow Sea
we closed in deadly conflict. We
fought not only for our motherland, but
for the ideals of the recent reformation,
for the noble heritage of classic culture,
218
JAPAN AND PEACE
and for those dreams of peace and har-
mony in which we saw a glorious rebirth
for all Asia.
Who speaks of the Yellow Peril?
The idea that China might, with the aid
of Japan, hurl her hosts against Europe
would be too absurd even to notice were
it not for those things from which atten-
tion is drawn by the utterance. It may
not, perhaps, be generally known that
the expression " Yellow Peril " was first
coined in Germany when she was pre-
paring to annex the coast of Shantung.
Naturally, therefore, we become suspi-
cious when Russia takes up the cry at
the very moment when she is tightening
the grasp of her mailed hand on Man-
churia and Korea.
The Great Wall of China, the only
edifice on earth of sufficient length to be
seen from the moon, stands as a monu-
219
THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN
mental protest against the possibility of
such a peril. This ancient rampart,
stretching from Shan-hai-kuan to the
Tonkan Pass, was erected not only as a
barrier against foreign encroachment,
but also as the self -defined territorial
limit of Celestial ambition. During the
twenty-one centuries of its existence
but occasional sorties were made through
its gates, and those only with the object
of chastising predatory tribes. It is a
fact peculiarly worthy of note that the
legendary lore of the Chinese contains
no tale of over-sea or crusade-like enter-
prises, no account of Macedonian con-
quests or Roman triumphs. The epics
of the Trojan war or the Viking sagas
find no echo in the literature of the Flow-
ery Kingdom. This cry of a YeUow
Peril must, indeed, sound ironical to the
Chinese, who, through their traditional
220
JAPAN AND TEACE
policy of non-resistance, are even now
suffering in the throes of the White
Disaster.
Again, the whole history of Japan's
long and voluntary isolation from the
rest of the world makes such a cry ri-
diculous. However changed modern
conditions may be, there is no reason for
supposing that either Japan or China
might suddenly develop a nomadic in-
stinct and set forth on a career of over-
whelming devastation.
If the wont of history is to repeat
itself, if a real peril is again to threaten
the world, it will be one born in the his-
toric cradle of the steppes, not in the rich
valleys of the Hwang-ho and the Yang-
tse-kiang, nor on the terraced hillsides of
the Japanese archipelago. It was from
within the limits of imperial Russia that
in ancient times the Goths, the Vandals,
221
THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN
the Huns, and the Mongols descended,
with their nomadic hosts, over Europe
and southern Asia. It is among the tall
grasses that wave to the wind from the
banks of the Amur to the foot of the
Ural Mountains that the Siberian Cos-
sacks and Tartars, grim descendants of
Jenghiz and Tamerlane, still roam un-
tamed. In the atrocities committed in
Peking and Manchuria, and in the re-
cent horrors of Kishinef, the world
may see what is to be expected from the
Muscovite soldiery when once their sav-
age nature has broken loose. Russia
herself is responsible for the possibility
of that peril which she now attributes to
the peaceful nations of the far East.
When will wars cease? In the West
international morahty remains far be-
low the standard to which individual
morality has attained. Aggressive na-
222
JAPAN AND PEACE
tions have no conscience, and all chivalry
is forgotten in the persecution of weaker
races. He who has not the courage and
the strength to defend himself is bound
to be enslaved. It is sad for us to con-
template that our truest friend is still
the sword. What mean these strange
combinations which Europe displays, —
the hospital and the torpedo, the Chris-
tian missionary and imperialism, the
maintenance of vast armaments as a
guarantee of peace? Such contradic-
tions did not exist in the ancient civiliza-
tion of the East. Such were not the
ideals of the Japanese Restoration, such
is not the goal of her reformation. The
night of the Orient, which had hidden us
in its folds, has been lifted, but we find
the world still in the dusk of humanity.
Europe has taught us war; when shall
she learn the blessings of peace?
223 ;
CHRONOLOGY
India
China
Japan
B.C. 823 Buddha B.C.
604 Lao-tsze
551 Confu-
cius
B.C. 660 First Em-
pwror of
Japan
24SAsoka
221 Tsin
Dynasty
202 Hang
Dynasty
A.D. 50 Kaniska A.D.
67 Introduc-
tion of
Buddhism
220 The Three
Kingdoms
268 The Six
Dynasties
A.D. 285 Introduc-
tion of
Confu-
cianism
550 Vikrama^
ditya
552 Introduc-
tion of
Bud-
dhism
618 Tang
Dynasty
700 The Kara
Period
800 Sanchara-
charya
800 The Heian
Period
907 The Five
Dynasties
960 Sung
Dynasty
900 The Fuji-
wara
Period
1024 Mahmud
ofGhazni
1100 Rise of the
Mongols
1150 Decline of
Imperial
Rule
1219 Beginning
of Mongol
Invasion
1200 Jenghiz
Khan
1192 Kamaku-
ra Sho-
gunate
1260 Yuen, or the
Mongol,
Dynasty
1281 Mongol
Invasion
224
CHRONOLOGY
India
China
A.D,
A.D. 1898 Tamerlane A.D.1368 Ming
Dynasty
1526 The Mogul
Empire
1664 Sivaji, King
of the
Mahrattas
1757 Battle of
Plassey
1803 The last of
the Great
Moguls
1664 Manchu
Dynasty
1800 Russians on
the Amur
1858 British Sov-
ereignty
over India
1842 Opium War;
British in
Hongkong
1860 Sack of the
Summer
Palace
1874 French Pro-
tectorate
over
Annam
1806 Russia in
Port Ar-
thur, Ger-
many in
Kiao-chau
Japan
1S34 Temporary
Restora-
tion of
Imr>erial
Rule
1338 Ashikaga
Shogunate
1583 Taiko Hi-
deyoshi
1600 Tokuga-
wa Sho-
gunate
1806 Russian En-
croach-
ment on
Yesso
1853 The Arrival
of Com-
modore
Perry
1860 Death of
Lord of
Hikone
1861 Assembly of
Daimios
at Kioto
1867 Resignation
of Keiki,
the last
Shogun
1868 Restoration
of the Im-
perial
Rule
1894 War with
China
1904 War with
Russia
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